LITMIR.BIZ

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chapels. Mrs. Hethering-ton was the wealthy widow of a Glasgow merchant, long settled in London, and she set her face rigidly against modern thought, ecclesiastical vestments, and cooking on the sabbath. Curiously enough, her son Walter, who inherited a handsome competence, was a painter, and followed his heathen occupation with much talent, and more youthful enthusiasm. His landscapes, chiefly of Highland scenes, had been exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy. His mother, whose highest ideas of art were founded on a superficial acquaintance with the Scripture pieces of Noel Paton, and an occasional contemplation of biblical masterpieces in the Doré Gallery, would have preferred to have seen him following in his fathers footsteps, and even entering the true kirk as a preacher; but his sympathies were pagan, and a gloomy childish experience had not fitted him with the requisite enthusiasm for John Calvin and the sabbath.

      Walter Hetherington was a fine fresh young fellow of three and twenty, and belonged to the clever set of Scotch painters, headed by Messrs. Pettie, Richardson, and Peter Graham. He was “cannie” painstaking, and rather sceptical, and, putting aside his art, which he really loved, he felt true enthusiasm for only one thing in the world – his cousin Edith, whom he hoped and longed to make his wife.

      As a very young girl, Edith had seemed rather attached to him; but of late years, during which they saw each other only at long intervals, she seemed colder and colder to his advances. He noticed her indifference, and set it down somewhat angrily to girlish fanaticism, for he had little or no suspicion whatever that another man’s image might be filling her thoughts. Once or twice, it is true, when she sounded the praises of her Omberley pastor, his zeal, his goodness, his beauty of discourse, he asked himself if he could possibly have a rival there; but knowing something of the relinquent fancies of young vestals, he rejected the idea. To tell the truth, he rather pitied the Rev. Mr. Santley, whom he had never seen, as a hardheaded, dogmatic, elderly creature of the type greatly approved by his mother, and abundant even in Clapham. He had no idea of an Adonis in a clerical frock coat, with a beautiful profile, white hands, and a voice gentle and low – the latter an excellent thing in woman, but a dangerous thing in an unmarried preacher of the Word.

      CHAPTER XVII. WALTER HETHERINGTON

      When the party got home from the opera, it was only half-past ten. They sat down to a frugal supper in the dining-room.

      “I am sorry you did not wait till the last act,” said the young man, after an awkward silence. “Patti’s death scene is magnificent.”

      “I’m thinking we heard enough,” his mother replied. “I never cared much for play-acting, and I see little sense in screeching about in a foreign tongue. I’d rather have half an hour of the Reverend Mr. Mactavish’s discourses than a night of fooling like yon.”

      “What do you say, Edith? I’m sure the music was very pretty.”

      “Yes, it was beautiful; but not knowing much of Italian, I could not gather what it was all about.”

      “It is an operatic version of a story of the younger Dumas,” explained Walter, with an uncomfortable sense of treading on dangerous ground. “The story is that of a beautiful woman who has lived an evil life, and is reformed through her affection for a young Frenchman. His friends think he is degrading himself by offering to marry her, and to cure him she pretends to be false and wicked. In the end, she dies in his arms, broken-hearted. It is a very touching subject, I think, though some people consider it immoral.”

      Here the matron broke in with quiet severity.

      “I wonder yon woman – Patti, you call her – doesn’t think shame to appear in such dresses. One of them was scarcely decent, and I was almost ashamed to look at her – the creature!”

      “But her singing, mother, her singing; was it not divine?”

      “It was meeddling loud; but I’ve heard far finer in the kirk. Edith, my bairn, you’re tired, I’m thinking. We’ll just read a chapter, and get to bed.”

      So the chapter was read, and the ladies retired, while Walter walked off to his studio to have a quiet pipe. He was too used to his mother’s peculiarities to be much surprised at the failure of the evening’s entertainment; but he felt really amazed that Edith had not been more impressed.

      The next morning, when they met at breakfast, Edith astonished both her aunt and cousin by expressing her wish to return to Omberley as soon as possible.

      “Go away already!” cried the young man. ‘“Why, you’ve hardly been here a week, and you’ve seen nothing of town, and we’ve all the picture-galleries to visit yet.”

      “And you have not heard Mr. Mactavish discoorse,” cried his mother. “No, no; you must bide awhile.”

      But Edith shook her head, and they saw her mind was made up.

      “I can come again at Christmas, but I would rather go now,” she said.

      “But why have you changed your mind?” inquired her cousin eagerly.

      “I think they want me at home; and there is a great deal of church work to be done in the village.”

      Walter was not deceived by this excuse, and tried persuasion, but it was of no avail. The girl was determined to return home immediately. He little knew the real cause of her determination. Haldane’s presence in London had filled her, in spite of herself, with jealous alarm. Ellen Haldane was alone at the Manor, with no husband’s eyes to trouble her; and, despite the clergyman’s oath of fidelity, Edith could not trust him.

      Yes, she would go home. It was time to put an end to it all, to remind Santley of his broken promises, and to claim their fulfilment. If he refused to do her justice, she would part from him for ever; not, however, without letting the other woman, her rival, know his true character.

      It was arranged that she should leave by an early train next morning. For the greater part of the day she kept her room, engaged in preparations for the journey; but towards evening Walter found her alone in the drawing-room. The old lady, his mother, who earnestly wished him to marry his cousin, had contrived to be out of the way.

      “I am so sorry you are going,” the young man said. “We see so little of each other now.”

      Edith was seated with her back to the window, her face in deep shade. She knew by her cousin’s manner that he was more than usually agitated, and she dreaded what was coming – what had come, indeed, on several occasions before. She did not answer, but almost unconsciously heaved a deep sigh.

      “Does that mean that you are sorry too?” asked Walter, leaning towards her to see her face.

      “Of course I am sorry,” she replied, with a certain constraint.

      “I wish I could believe that. Somehow or other, Edith, it seems to me that you would rather be anywhere than here. Well, you have some cause; for the house is dreary enough, and we are all dull people. But you and I used to be such friends! More like brother and sister than mere cousins. Is that all over? Are we to drift farther and farther apart as the years pass on? It seems to me as if it might come to that.”

      “How absurd you are!” said Edith, trying to force a laugh, but failing lamentably. “You know I was always fond of you and – and – of your mother.” Walter winced under the sting of the last sentence, so unconsciously given.

      “I don’t mean that at all,” he exclaimed. “Of course you liked us, as relations like each other; but am I never to be more to you than a mere cousin? You know I love you, that I have loved you ever since we were boy and girl; and once – ah, yes, I thought you cared for me a little. Edith, what does it mean? Why are you so changed?”

      Edith was more deeply changed than ever her cousin could guess. Had he been able to see her face, he would have been wonder-stricken at its expression of mingled shame and despair. She tried to reply; but before she could do so her voice was choked, and her tears began to fall. In a moment he was close beside her, and bending over her, with one hand outstretched to clasp her.

      “Now, you are crying. Edith, my darling, what is it?”

      “Don’t touch me,” she sobbed, shrinking from him. “I can’t

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