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Ayala's Angel

by Anthony Trollope · English · Gutenberg #33500 · 1,195,977 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Ayala's Angel

Author: Anthony Trollope


        
Release date: August 25, 2010 [eBook #33500]
                Most recently updated: October 27, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33500

Credits: E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AYALA'S ANGEL ***




AYALA'S ANGEL

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE,

Author of "Doctor Thorne," "The Prime Minister," "Orley Farm,"
&c., &c.

In Three Volumes.

VOL. I.







London:
Chapman and Hall (Limited),
11, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.
1881.
[All Rights Reserved.]

Westminster:
J. B. Nichols and Sons, Printers.
25, Parliament Street.




CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

       I. THE TWO SISTERS.
      II. LUCY WITH HER AUNT DOSETT.
     III. LUCY'S TROUBLES.
      IV. ISADORE HAMEL.
       V. AT GLENBOGIE.
      VI. AT ROME.
     VII. TOM TRINGLE IN EARNEST.
    VIII. THE LOUT.
      IX. THE EXCHANGE.
       X. AYALA AND HER AUNT MARGARET.
      XI. TOM TRINGLE COMES TO THE CRESCENT.
     XII. "WOULD YOU?"
    XIII. HOW THE TRINGLES FELL INTO TROUBLE.
     XIV. FRANK HOUSTON.
      XV. AYALA WITH HER FRIENDS.
     XVI. JONATHAN STUBBS.
    XVII. LUCY IS VERY FIRM.
   XVIII. DOWN IN SCOTLAND.
     XIX. ISADORE HAMEL IS ASKED TO LUNCH.
      XX. STUBBS UPON MATRIMONY.
     XXI. AYALA'S INDIGNATION.
    XXII. AYALA'S GRATITUDE.




AYALA'S ANGEL.


CHAPTER I.

THE TWO SISTERS.


When Egbert Dormer died he left his two daughters utterly penniless
upon the world, and it must be said of Egbert Dormer that nothing
else could have been expected of him. The two girls were both
pretty, but Lucy, who was twenty-one, was supposed to be simple and
comparatively unattractive, whereas Ayala was credited,--as her
somewhat romantic name might show,--with poetic charm and a taste for
romance. Ayala when her father died was nineteen.

We must begin yet a little earlier and say that there had been,--and
had died many years before the death of Egbert Dormer,--a clerk in
the Admiralty, by name Reginald Dosett, who, and whose wife, had been
conspicuous for personal beauty. Their charms were gone, but the
records of them had been left in various grandchildren. There had
been a son born to Mr. Dosett, who was also a Reginald and a clerk
in the Admiralty, and who also, in his turn, had been a handsome
man. With him, in his decadence, the reader will become acquainted.
There were also two daughters, whose reputation for perfect feminine
beauty had never been contested. The elder had married a city man of
wealth,--of wealth when he married her, but who had become enormously
wealthy by the time of our story. He had when he married been simply
Mister, but was now Sir Thomas Tringle, Baronet, and was senior
partner in the great firm of Travers and Treason. Of Traverses and
Treasons there were none left in these days, and Mr. Tringle was
supposed to manipulate all the millions with which the great firm in
Lombard Street was concerned. He had married old Mr. Dosett's eldest
daughter, Emmeline, who was now Lady Tringle, with a house at the top
of Queen's Gate, rented at £1,500 a year, with a palatial moor in
Scotland, with a seat in Sussex, and as many carriages and horses as
would suit an archduchess. Lady Tringle had everything in the world;
a son, two daughters, and an open-handed stout husband, who was said
to have told her that money was a matter of no consideration.

The second Miss Dosett, Adelaide Dosett, who had been considerably
younger than her sister, had insisted upon giving herself to Egbert
Dormer, the artist, whose death we commemorated in our first line.
But she had died before her husband. They who remembered the two
Miss Dosetts as girls were wont to declare that, though Lady Tringle
might, perhaps, have had the advantage in perfection of feature and
in unequalled symmetry, Adelaide had been the more attractive from
expression and brilliancy. To her Lord Sizes had offered his hand
and coronet, promising to abandon for her sake all the haunts of his
matured life. To her Mr. Tringle had knelt before he had taken the
elder sister. For her Mr. Program, the popular preacher of the day,
for a time so totally lost himself that he was nearly minded to go
over to Rome. She was said to have had offers from a widowed Lord
Chancellor and from a Russian prince. Her triumphs would have quite
obliterated that of her sister had she not insisted on marrying
Egbert Dormer.

Then there had been, and still was, Reginald Dosett, the son of old
Dosett, and the eldest of the family. He too had married, and was now
living with his wife; but to them had no children been born, luckily,
as he was a poor man. Alas, to a beautiful son it is not often that
beauty can be a fortune as to a daughter. Young Reginald Dosett,--he
is anything now but young,--had done but little for himself with his
beauty, having simply married the estimable daughter of a brother
clerk. Now, at the age of fifty, he had his £900 a year from his
office, and might have lived in fair comfort had he not allowed a
small millstone of debt to hang round his neck from his earlier
years. But still he lived creditably in a small but very genteel
house at Notting Hill, and would have undergone any want rather than
have declared himself to be a poor man to his rich relations the
Tringles.

Such were now the remaining two children of old Mr. Dosett,--Lady
Tringle, namely, and Reginald Dosett, the clerk in the Admiralty.
Adelaide, the beauty in chief of the family, was gone; and now
also her husband, the improvident artist, had followed his wife.
Dormer had been by no means a failing artist. He had achieved
great honour,--had at an early age been accepted into the Royal
Academy,--had sold pictures to illustrious princes and more
illustrious dealers, had been engraved and had lived to see his own
works resold at five times their original prices. Egbert Dormer might
also have been a rich man. But he had a taste for other beautiful
things besides a wife. The sweetest little phaeton that was to
cost nothing, the most perfect bijou of a little house at South
Kensington,--he had boasted that it might have been packed without
trouble in his brother-in-law Tringle's dining-room,--the simplest
little gem for his wife, just a blue set of china for his dinner
table, just a painted cornice for his studio, just satin hangings for
his drawing-room,--and a few simple ornaments for his little girls;
these with a few rings for himself, and velvet suits of clothing
in which to do his painting; these, with a few little dinner
parties to show off his blue china, were the first and last of his
extravagances. But when he went, and when his pretty things were
sold, there was not enough to cover his debts. There was, however, a
sweet savour about his name. When he died it was said of him that his
wife's death had killed him. He had dropped his pallette, refused
to finish the ordered portrait of a princess, and had simply turned
himself round and died.

Then there were the two daughters, Lucy and Ayala. It should be
explained that though a proper family intercourse had always been
maintained between the three families, the Tringles, the Dormers, and
the Dosetts, there had never been cordiality between the first and
the two latter. The wealth of the Tringles had seemed to convey with
it a fetid odour. Egbert Dormer, with every luxury around him which
money could purchase, had affected to despise the heavy magnificence
of the Tringles. It may be that he affected a fashion higher than
that which the Tringles really attained. Reginald Dosett, who was
neither brilliant nor fashionable, was in truth independent, and,
perhaps, a little thin-skinned. He would submit to no touch of
arrogance from Sir Thomas; and Sir Thomas seemed to carry arrogance
in his brow and in his paunch. It was there rather, perhaps, than in
his heart; but there are men to whom a knack of fumbling their money
in their pockets and of looking out from under penthouse brows over
an expanse of waistcoat, gives an air of overweening pride which
their true idiosyncracies may not justify. To Dosett had, perhaps,
been spoken a word or two which on some occasion he had inwardly
resented, and from thenceforward he had ever been ready to league
with Dormer against the "bullionaire," as they agreed to call Sir
Thomas. Lady Tringle had even said a word to her sister, Mrs. Dormer,
as to expenses, and that had never been forgiven by the artist. So
things were when Mrs. Dormer died first; and so they remained when
her husband followed her.

Then there arose a sudden necessity for action, which, for a while,
brought Reginald Dosett into connexion with Sir Thomas and Lady
Tringle. Something must be done for the poor girls. That the
something should come out of the pocket of Sir Thomas would have
seemed to be natural. Money with him was no object,--not at all.
Another girl or two would be nothing to him,--as regarded simple
expenditure. But the care of a human being is an important matter,
and so Sir Thomas knew. Dosett had not a child at all, and would be
the better for such a windfall. Dosett he supposed to be,--in his,
Dosett's way,--fairly well off. So he made this proposition. He would
take one girl and let Dosett take the other. To this Lady Tringle
added her proviso, that she should have the choice. To her nerves
affairs of taste were of such paramount importance! To this Dosett
yielded. The matter was decided in Lady Tringle's back drawing-room.
Mrs. Dosett was not even consulted in that matter of choice, having
already acknowledged the duty of mothering a motherless child. Dosett
had thought that the bullionaire should have said a word as to some
future provision for the penniless girl, for whom he would be able
to do so little. But Sir Thomas had said no such word, and Dosett,
himself, lacked both the courage and the coarseness to allude to the
matter. Then Lady Tringle declared that she must have Ayala, and so
the matter was settled. Ayala the romantic; Ayala the poetic! It was
a matter of course that Ayala should be chosen. Ayala had already
been made intimate with the magnificent saloons of the Tringles,
and had been felt by Lady Tringle to be an attraction. Her long
dark black locks, which had never hitherto been tucked up, which
were never curled, which were never so long as to be awkward, were
already known as being the loveliest locks in London. She sang as
though Nature had intended her to be a singing-bird,--requiring no
education, no labour. She had been once for three months in Paris,
and French had come naturally to her. Her father had taught her
something of his art, and flatterers had already begun to say that
she was born to be the one great female artist of the world. Her
hands, her feet, her figure were perfect. Though she was as yet but
nineteen, London had already begun to talk about Ayala Dormer. Of
course Lady Tringle chose Ayala, not remembering at the moment that
her own daughters might probably be superseded by their cousin.

And, therefore, as Lady Tringle said herself to Lucy with her
sweetest smile--Mrs. Dosett had chosen Lucy. The two girls were old
enough to know something of the meaning of such a choice. Ayala,
the younger, was to be adopted into immense wealth, and Lucy was to
be given up to comparative poverty. She knew nothing of her uncle
Dosett's circumstances, but the genteel house at Notting Hill,--No.
3, Kingsbury Crescent,--was known to her, and was but a poor affair
as compared even with the bijou in which she had hitherto lived. Her
aunt Dosett never rose to any vehicle beyond a four-wheeler, and
was careful even in thinking of that accommodation. Ayala would be
whirled about the park by a wire-wig and a pair of brown horses which
they had heard it said were not to be matched in London. Ayala would
be carried with her aunt and her cousin to the show-room of Madame
Tonsonville, the great French milliner of Bond Street, whereas she,
Lucy, might too probably be called on to make her own gowns. All the
fashion of Queen's Gate, something, perhaps, of the fashion of Eaton
Square, would be open to Ayala. Lucy understood enough to know that
Ayala's own charms might probably cause still more August gates to
be opened to her, whereas Aunt Dosett entered no gates. It was quite
natural that Ayala should be chosen. Lucy acknowledged as much to
herself. But they were sisters, and had been so near! By what a chasm
would they be dissevered, now so far asunder!

Lucy herself was a lovely girl, and knew her own loveliness. She
was fairer than Ayala, somewhat taller, and much more quiet in her
demeanour. She was also clever, but her cleverness did not show
itself so quickly. She was a musician, whereas her sister could only
sing. She could really draw, whereas her sister would rush away into
effects in which the drawing was not always very excellent. Lucy was
doing the best she could for herself, knowing something of French
and German, though as yet not very fluent with her tongue. The two
girls were, in truth, both greatly gifted; but Ayala had the gift of
showing her talent without thought of showing it. Lucy saw it all,
and knew that she was outshone; but how great had been the price of
the outshining!

The artist's house had been badly ordered, and the two girls were of
better disposition and better conduct than might have been expected
from such fitful training. Ayala had been the father's pet, and Lucy
the mother's. Parents do ill in making pets, and here they had done
ill. Ayala had been taught to think herself the favourite, because
the artist, himself, had been more prominent before the world than
his wife. But the evil had not been lasting enough to have made bad
feeling between the sisters. Lucy knew that her sister had been
preferred to her, but she had been self-denying enough to be aware
that some such preference was due to Ayala. She, too, admired Ayala,
and loved her with her whole heart. And Ayala was always good to
her,--had tried to divide everything,--had assumed no preference as a
right. The two were true sisters. But when it was decided that Lucy
was to go to Kingsbury Crescent the difference was very great. The
two girls, on their father's death, had been taken to the great red
brick house in Queen's Gate, and from thence, three or four days
after the funeral, Lucy was to be transferred to her Aunt Dosett.
Hitherto there had been little between them but weeping for their
father. Now had come the hour of parting.

The tidings had been communicated to Lucy, and to Lucy alone, by Aunt
Tringle,--"As you are the eldest, dear, we think that you will be
best able to be a comfort to your aunt," said Lady Tringle.

"I will do the best I can, Aunt Emmeline," said Lucy, declaring to
herself that, in giving such a reason, her aunt was lying basely.

"I am sure you will. Poor dear Ayala is younger than her cousins, and
will be more subject to them." So in truth was Lucy younger than her
cousins, but of that she said nothing. "I am sure you will agree with
me that it is best that we should have the youngest."

"Perhaps it is, Aunt Emmeline."

"Sir Thomas would not have had it any other way," said Lady Tringle,
with a little severity, feeling that Lucy's accord had hardly been
as generous as it should be. But she recovered herself quickly,
remembering how much it was that Ayala was to get, how much that Lucy
was to lose. "But, my dear, we shall see you very often, you know.
It is not so far across the park; and when we do have a few parties
again--"

"Oh, aunt, I am not thinking of that."

"Of course not. We can none of us think of it just now. But when
the time does come of course we shall always have you, just as if
you were one of us." Then her aunt gave her a roll of bank-notes, a
little present of twenty-five pounds, to begin the world with, and
told her that the carriage should take her to Kingsbury Crescent
on the following morning. On the whole Lucy behaved well and left
a pleasant impression on her aunt's mind. The difference between
Queen's Gate and Kingsbury Crescent,--between Queen's Gate and
Kingsbury Crescent for life,--was indeed great!

"I wish it were you, with all my heart," said Ayala, clinging to her
sister.

"It could not have been me."

"Why not!"

"Because you are so pretty and you are so clever."

"No!"

"Yes! If we were to be separated of course it would be so. Do not
suppose, dear, that I am disappointed."

"I am."

"If I can only like Aunt Margaret,"--Aunt Margaret was Mrs. Dosett,
with whom neither of the girls had hitherto become intimate, and who
was known to be quiet, domestic, and economical, but who had also
been spoken of as having a will of her own,--"I shall do better with
her than you would, Ayala."

"I don't see why."

"Because I can remain quiet longer than you. It will be very quiet.
I wonder how we shall see each other! I cannot walk across the park
alone."

"Uncle Reg will bring you."

"Not often, I fear. Uncle Reg has enough to do with his office."

"You can come in a cab."

"Cabs cost money, Ayey dear."

"But Uncle Thomas--"

"We had better understand one or two things, Ayala. Uncle Thomas will
pay everything for you, and as he is very rich things will come as
they are wanted. There will be cabs, and if not cabs, carriages.
Uncle Reg must pay for me, and he is very very kind to do so. But
as he is not rich, there will be no carriages, and not a great many
cabs. It is best to understand it all."

"But they will send for you."

"That's as they please. I don't think they will very often. I would
not for the world put you against Uncle Thomas, but I have a feeling
that I shall never get on with him. But you will never separate
yourself from me, Ayala!"

"Separate myself!"

"You will not--not be my sister because you will be one of these rich
ones?"

"Oh, I wish,--I wish that I were to be the poor one. I'm sure I
should like it best. I never cared about being rich. Oh, Lucy, can't
we make them change?"

"No, Ayey, my own, we can't make them change. And if we could, we
wouldn't. It is altogether best that you should be a rich Tringle and
that I should be a poor Dosett."

"I will always be a Dormer," said Ayala, proudly.

"And I will always be so too, my pet. But you should be a bright
Dormer among the Tringles, and I will be a dull Dormer among the
Dosetts. I shall begrudge nothing, if only we can see each other."

So the two girls were parted, the elder being taken away to Kingsbury
Crescent and the latter remaining with her rich relations at Queen's
Gate. Ayala had not probably realized the great difference of their
future positions. To her the attractions of wealth and the privations
of comparative poverty had not made themselves as yet palpably plain.
They do not become so manifest to those to whom the wealth falls,--at
any rate, not in early life,--as to the opposite party. If the other
lot had fallen to Ayala she might have felt it more keenly.

Lucy felt it keenly enough. Without any longing after the
magnificence of the Tringle mansion she knew how great was the fall
from her father's well-assorted luxuries and prettinesses down to the
plain walls, tables, and chairs of her Uncle Dosett's house. Her aunt
did not subscribe to Mudie's. The old piano had not been tuned for
the last ten years. The parlour-maid was a cross old woman. Her aunt
always sat in the dining-room through the greater part of the day,
and of all rooms the dining-room in Kingsbury Crescent was the
dingiest. Lucy understood very well to what she was going. Her father
and mother were gone. Her sister was divided from her. Her life
offered for the future nothing to her. But with it all she carried a
good courage. There was present to her an idea of great misfortune;
but present to her at the same time an idea also that she would do
her duty.




CHAPTER II.

LUCY WITH HER AUNT DOSETT.


For some days Lucy found herself to be absolutely crushed,--in the
first place, by a strong resolution to do some disagreeable duty,
and then by a feeling that there was no duty the doing of which was
within her reach. It seemed to her that her whole life was a blank.
Her father's house had been a small affair and considered to be poor
when compared with the Tringle mansion, but she now became aware that
everything there had in truth abounded. In one little room there
had been two or three hundred beautifully bound books. That Mudie's
unnumbered volumes should come into the house as they were wanted
had almost been as much a provision of nature as water, gas, and hot
rolls for breakfast. A piano of the best kind, and always in order,
had been a first necessary of life, and, like other necessaries, of
course, forthcoming. There had been the little room in which the
girls painted, joining their father's studio and sharing its light,
surrounded by every pretty female appliance. Then there had always
been visitors. The artists from Kensington had been wont to gather
there, and the artists' daughters, and perhaps the artists' sons.
Every day had had its round of delights,--its round of occupations,
as the girls would call them. There had been some reading, some
painting, some music,--perhaps a little needlework and a great deal
of talking.

How little do we know how other people live in the houses close to
us! We see the houses looking like our own, and we see the people
come out of them looking like ourselves. But a Chinaman is not more
different from the English John Bull than is No. 10 from No. 11.
Here there are books, paintings, music, wine, a little dilettanti
getting-up of subjects of the day, a little dilettanti thinking on
great affairs, perhaps a little dilettanti religion; few domestic
laws, and those easily broken; few domestic duties, and those easily
evaded; breakfast when you will, with dinner almost as little
binding, with much company and acknowledged aptitude for idle luxury.
That is life at No. 10. At No. 11 everything is cased in iron. There
shall be equal plenty, but at No. 11 even plenty is a bondage. Duty
rules everything, and it has come to be acknowledged that duty is to
be hard. So many hours of needlework, so many hours of books, so many
hours of prayer! That all the household shall shiver before daylight,
is a law, the breach of which by any member either augurs sickness or
requires condign punishment. To be comfortable is a sin; to laugh is
almost equal to bad language. Such and so various is life at No. 10
and at No. 11.

From one extremity, as far removed, to another poor Lucy had been
conveyed; though all the laws were not exactly carried out in
Kingsbury Crescent as they have been described at No. 11. The
enforced prayers were not there, nor the early hours. It was simply
necessary that Lucy should be down to breakfast at nine, and had
she not appeared nothing violent would have been said. But it was
required of her that she should endure a life which was altogether
without adornment. Uncle Dosett himself, as a clerk in the Admiralty,
had a certain position in the world which was sufficiently maintained
by decent apparel, a well-kept, slight, grey whisker, and an umbrella
which seemed never to have been violated by use. Dosett was popular
at his office, and was regarded by his brother clerks as a friend.
But no one was acquainted with his house and home. They did not
dine with him, nor he with them. There are such men in all public
offices,--not the less respected because of the quiescence of their
lives. It was known of him that he had burdens, though it was not
known what his burdens were. His friends, therefore, were intimate
with him as far as the entrance into Somerset House,--where his
duties lay,--and not beyond it. Lucy was destined to know the other
side of his affairs, the domestic side, which was as quiet as the
official side. The link between them, which consisted of a journey by
the Underground Railway to the Temple Station, and a walk home along
the Embankment and across the parks and Kensington Gardens, was the
pleasantest part of Dosett's life.

Mr. Dosett's salary has been said to be £900 per annum. What a fund
of comfort there is in the word! When the youth of nineteen enters
an office how far beyond want would he think himself should he ever
reach the pecuniary paradise of £900 a-year! How he would see all his
friends, and in return be seen of them! But when the income has been
achieved its capabilities are found to be by no means endless. And
Dosett in the earlier spheres of his married life had unfortunately
anticipated something of such comforts. For a year or two he had
spent a little money imprudently. Something which he had expected
had not come to him; and, as a result, he had been forced to
borrow, and to insure his life for the amount borrowed. Then,
too, when that misfortune as to the money came,--came from the
non-realization of certain claims which his wife had been supposed
to possess,--provision had also to be made for her. In this way an
assurance office eat up a large fraction of his income, and left him
with means which in truth were very straitened. Dosett at once gave
up all glories of social life, settled himself in Kingsbury Crescent,
and resolved to satisfy himself with his walk across the park and
his frugal dinner afterwards. He never complained to any one, nor
did his wife. He was a man small enough to be contented with a thin
existence, but far too great to ask any one to help him to widen it.
Sir Thomas Tringle never heard of that £175 paid annually to the
assurance office, nor had Lady Tringle, Dosett's sister, even heard
of it. When it was suggested to him that he should take one of the
Dormer girls, he consented to take her and said nothing of the
assurance office.

Mrs. Dosett had had her great blow in life, and had suffered more
perhaps than her husband. This money had been expected. There had
been no doubt of the money,--at any rate on her part. It did not
depend on an old gentleman with or without good intentions, but
simply on his death. There was to be ever so much of it, four or five
hundred a-year, which would last for ever. When the old gentleman
died, which took place some ten years after Dosett's marriage, it
was found that the money, tied tight as it had been by half-a-dozen
lawyers, had in some fashion vanished. Whither it had gone is little
to our purpose, but it had gone. Then there came a great crash upon
the Dosetts, which she for a while had been hardly able to endure.

But when she had collected herself together after the crash, and
had made up her mind, as had Dosett also, to the nature of the life
which they must in future lead, she became more stringent in it even
than he. He could bear and say nothing; but she, in bearing, found
herself compelled to say much. It had been her fault,--the fault of
people on her side,--and she would fain have fed her husband with
the full flowery potato while she ate only the rind. She told him,
unnecessarily, over and over again, that she had ruined him by her
marriage. No such idea was ever in his head. The thing had come, and
so it must be. There was food to eat, potatoes enough for both, and a
genteel house in which to live. He could still be happy if she would
not groan. A certain amount of groaning she did postpone while in his
presence. The sewing of seams, and the darning of household linen,
which in his eyes amounted to groaning, was done in his absence.
After their genteel dinner he would sleep a little, and she would
knit. He would have his glass of wine, but would make his bottle of
port last almost for a week. This was the house to which Lucy Dormer
was brought when Mr. Dosett had consented to share with Sir Thomas
the burden left by the death of the improvident artist.

When a month passed by Lucy began to think that time itself would
almost drive her mad. Her father had died early in September. The
Tringles had then, of course, been out of town, but Sir Thomas
and his wife had found themselves compelled to come up on such an
occasion. Something they knew must be done about the girls, and they
had not chosen that that something should be done in their absence.
Mr. Dosett was also enjoying his official leave of absence for
the year, but was enjoying it within the economical precincts of
Kingsbury Crescent. There was but seldom now an excursion for him or
his wife to the joys of the country. Once, some years ago, they had
paid a visit to the palatial luxuries of Glenbogie, but the delights
of the place had not paid for the expense of the long journey. They,
therefore, had been at hand to undertake their duties. Dosett and
Tringle, with a score of artists, had followed poor Dormer to his
grave in Kensal Green, and then Dosett and Tringle had parted again,
probably not to see each other for another term of years.

"My dear, what do you like to do with your time?" Mrs. Dosett said to
her niece, after the first week. At this time Lucy's wardrobe was not
yet of a nature to need much work over its ravages. The Dormer girls
had hardly known where their frocks had come from when they wanted
frocks,--hardly with more precision than the Tringle girls. Frocks
had come--dark, gloomy frocks, lately, alas! And these, too, had now
come a second time. Let creditors be ever so unsatisfied, new raiment
will always be found for mourning families. Everything about Lucy was
nearly new. The need of repairing would come upon her by degrees, but
it had not come as yet. Therefore there had seemed, to the anxious
aunt, to be a necessity for some such question as the above.

"I'll do anything you like, aunt," said Lucy.

"It is not for me, my dear. I get through a deal of work, and am
obliged to do so." She was, at this time, sitting with a sheet in her
lap, which she was turning. Lucy had, indeed, once offered to assist,
but her assistance had been rejected. This had been two days since,
and she had not renewed the proposal as she should have done. This
had been mainly from bashfulness. Though the work would certainly be
distasteful to her, she would do it. But she had not liked to seem to
interfere, not having as yet fallen into ways of intimacy with her
aunt. "I don't want to burden you with my task-work," continued Mrs.
Dosett, "but I am afraid you seem to be listless."

"I was reading till just before you spoke," said Lucy, again turning
her eyes to the little volume of poetry, which was one of the few
treasures which she had brought away with her from her old home.

"Reading is very well, but I do not like it as an excuse, Lucy."
Lucy's anger boiled within her when she was told of an excuse, and
she declared to herself that she could never like her aunt. "I am
quite sure that for young girls, as well as for old women, there
must be a great deal of waste time unless there be needle and thread
always about. And I know, too, unless ladies are well off, they
cannot afford to waste time any more than gentlemen."

In the whole course of her life nothing so much like scolding as
this had ever been addressed to her. So at least thought Lucy at
that moment. Mrs. Dosett had intended the remarks all in good part,
thinking them to be simply fitting from an aunt to a niece. It was
her duty to give advice, and for the giving of such advice some day
must be taken as the beginning. She had purposely allowed a week to
run by, and now she had spoken her word,--as she thought in good
season.

To Lucy it was a new and most bitter experience. Though she was
reading the "Idylls of the King," or pretending to read them, she
was, in truth, thinking of all that had gone from her. Her mind had,
at that moment, been intent upon her mother, who, in all respects,
had been so different from this careful, sheet-darning housewife of a
woman. And in thinking of her mother there had no doubt been regrets
for many things of which she would not have ventured to speak as
sharing her thoughts with the memory of her mother, but which were
nevertheless there to add darkness to the retrospective. Everything
behind had been so bright, and everything behind had gone away from
her! Everything before was so gloomy, and everything before must last
for so long! After her aunt's lecture about wasted time Lucy sat
silent for a few minutes, and then burst into uncontrolled tears.

"I did not mean to vex you," said her aunt.

"I was thinking of my--darling, darling mamma," sobbed Lucy.

"Of course, Lucy, you will think of her. How should you not? And of
your father. Those are sorrows which must be borne. But sorrows such
as those are much lighter to the busy than to the idle. I sometimes
think that the labourers grieve less for those they love than we do
just because they have not time to grieve."

"I wish I were a labourer then," said Lucy, through her tears.

"You may be if you will. The sooner you begin to be a labourer the
better for yourself and for those about you."

That Aunt Dosett's voice was harsh was not her fault,--nor that in
the obduracy of her daily life she had lost much of her original
softness. She had simply meant to be useful, and to do her duty; but
in telling Lucy that it would be better that the labouring should be
commenced at once for the sake of "those about you,"--who could only
be Aunt Dosett herself,--she had seemed to the girl to be harsh,
selfish, and almost unnatural. The volume of poetry fell from her
hand, and she jumped up from the chair quickly. "Give it me at once,"
she said, taking hold of the sheet,--which was not itself a pleasant
object; Lucy had never seen such a thing at the bijou. "Give it me at
once," she said, and clawed the long folds of linen nearly out of her
aunt's lap.

"I did not mean anything of the kind," said Aunt Dosett. "You should
not take me up in that way. I am speaking only for your good, because
I know that you should not dawdle away your existence. Leave the
sheet."

Lucy did leave the sheet, and then, sobbing violently, ran out of the
room up to her own chamber. Mrs. Dosett determined that she would
not follow her. She partly forgave the girl because of her sorrows,
partly reminded herself that she was not soft and facile as had been
her sister-in-law, Lucy's mother; and then, as she continued her
work, she assured herself that it would be best to let her niece
have her cry out upstairs. Lucy's violence had astonished her for a
moment, but she had taught herself to think it best to allow such
little ebullitions to pass off by themselves.

Lucy, when she was alone, flung herself upon her bed in absolute
agony. She thought that she had misbehaved, and yet how cruel,--how
harsh had been her aunt's words! If she, the quiet one, had
misbehaved, what would Ayala have done? And how was she to find
strength with which to look forward to the future? She struggled hard
with herself for a resolution. Should she determine that she would
henceforward darn sheets morning, noon, and night till she worked
her fingers to the bone? Perhaps there had been something of truth
in that assertion of her aunt's that the labourers have no time to
grieve. As everything else was shut out from her, it might be well
for her to darn sheets. Should she rush down penitent and beg her
aunt to allow her to commence at once?

She would have done it as far as the sheets were concerned, but she
could not do it as regarded her aunt. She could put herself into
unison with the crumpled soiled linen, but not with the hard woman.

Oh, how terrible was the change! Her father and her mother who had
been so gentle to her! All the sweet prettinesses of her life! All
her occupations, all her friends, all her delights! Even Ayala
was gone from her! How was she to bear it? She begrudged Ayala
nothing,--no, nothing. But yet it was hard! Ayala was to have
everything. Aunt Emmeline,--though they had not hitherto been very
fond of Aunt Emmeline,--was sweetness itself as compared with this
woman. "The sooner you begin to labour the better for yourself and
those about you." Would it not have been fitter that she should have
been sent at once to some actual poor-house in which there would have
been no mistake as to her position?

That it should all have been decided for her, for her and Ayala, not
by any will of their own, not by any concert between themselves, but
simply by the fantasy of another! Why should she thus be made a slave
to the fantasy of any one! Let Ayala have her uncle's wealth and her
aunt's palaces at her command, and she would walk out simply a pauper
into the world,--into some workhouse, so that at least she need not
be obedient to the harsh voice and the odious common sense of her
Aunt Dosett! But how should she take herself to some workhouse? In
what way could she prove her right to be admitted even then? It
seemed to her that the same decree which had admitted Ayala into the
golden halls of the fairies had doomed her not only to poverty, but
to slavery. There was no escape for her from her aunt and her aunt's
sermons. "Oh, Ayala, my darling,--my own one; oh, Ayala, if you did
but know!" she said to herself. What would Ayala think, how would
Ayala bear it, could she but guess by what a gulf was her heaven
divided from her sister's hell! "I will never tell her," she said to
herself. "I will die, and she shall never know."

As she lay there sobbing all the gilded things of the world were
beautiful in her eyes. Alas, yes, it was true. The magnificence of
the mansion at Queen's Gate, the glories of Glenbogie, the closely
studied comforts of Merle Park, as the place in Sussex was called,
all the carriages and horses, Madame Tonsonville and all the
draperies, the seats at the Albert Hall into which she had been
accustomed to go with as much ease as into her bed-room, the box at
the opera, the pretty furniture, the frequent gems, even the raiment
which would make her pleasing to the eyes of men whom she would like
to please--all these things grew in her eyes and became beautiful.
No. 3, Kingsbury Crescent, was surely, of all places on the earth's
surface, the most ugly. And yet,--yet she had endeavoured to do her
duty. "If it had been the workhouse I could have borne it," she said
to herself; "but not to be the slave of my Aunt Dosett!" Again she
appealed to her sister, "Oh, Ayala, if you did but know it!" Then she
remembered herself, declaring that it might have been worse to Ayala
than even to her. "If one had to bear it, it was better for me," she
said, as she struggled to prepare herself for her uncle's dinner.




CHAPTER III.

LUCY'S TROUBLES.


The evening after the affair with the sheet went off quietly, as did
many days and many evenings. Mrs. Dosett was wise enough to forget
the little violence and to forget also the feeling which had been
displayed. When Lucy first asked for some household needlework, which
she did with a faltering voice and shame-faced remembrance of her
fault, her aunt took it all in good part and gave her a task somewhat
lighter as a beginning than the handling of a sheet. Lucy sat at it
and suffered. She went on sitting and suffering. She told herself
that she was a martyr at every stitch she made. As she occupied the
seat opposite to her aunt's accustomed chair she would hardly speak
at all, but would keep her mind always intent on Ayala and the joys
of Ayala's life. That they who had been born together, sisters, with
equal fortunes, who had so closely lived together, should be sundered
so utterly one from the other; that the one should be so exalted and
the other so debased! And why? What justice had there been? Could it
be from heaven or even from earth that the law had gone forth for
such a division of the things of the world between them?

"You have got very little to say to a person?" said Aunt Dosett, one
morning. This, too, was a reproach. This, too, was scolding. And yet
Aunt Dosett had intended to be as pleasant as she knew how.

"I have very little to say," replied Lucy, with repressed anger.

"But why?"

"Because I am stupid," said Lucy. "Stupid people can't talk. You
should have had Ayala."

"I hope you do not envy Ayala her fortune, Lucy?" A woman with any
tact would not have asked such a question at such a time. She should
have felt that a touch of such irony might be natural, and that
unless it were expressed loudly, or shown actively, it might be left
to be suppressed by affection and time. But she, as she had grown
old, had taught herself to bear disappointment, and thought it wise
to teach Lucy to do the same.

"Envy!" said Lucy, not passionately, but after a little pause for
thought. "I sometimes think it is very hard to know what envy is."

"Envy, hatred, and malice," said Mrs. Dosett, hardly knowing what she
meant by the use of the well-worn words.

"I do know what hatred and malice are," said Lucy. "Do you think I
hate Ayala?"

"I am sure you do not."

"Or that I bear her malice?"

"Certainly not."

"If I had the power to take anything from her, would I do it? I love
Ayala with my whole heart. Whatever be my misery I would rather bear
it than let Ayala have even a share of it. Whatever good things she
may have I would not rob her even of a part of them. If there be joy
and sorrow to be divided between us I would wish to have the sorrow
so that she might have the joy. That is not hatred and malice." Mrs.
Dosett looked at her over her spectacles. This was the girl who had
declared that she could not speak because she was too stupid! "But,
when you ask me whether I envy her, I hardly know," continued Lucy.
"I think one does covet one's neighbour's house, in spite of the
tenth commandment, even though one does not want to steal it."

Mrs. Dosett repented herself that she had given rise to any
conversation at all. Silence, absolute silence, the old silence which
she had known for a dozen years before Lucy had come to her, would
have been better than this. She was very angry, more angry than she
had ever yet been with Lucy; and yet she was afraid to show her
anger. Was this the girl's gratitude for all that her uncle was doing
for her,--for shelter, food, comfort, for all that she had in the
world? Mrs. Dosett knew, though Lucy did not, of the little increased
pinchings which had been made necessary by the advent of another
inmate in the house; so many pounds of the meat in the week, and so
much bread, and so much tea and sugar! It had all been calculated.
In genteel houses such calculation must often be made. And when by
degrees,--degrees very quick,--the garments should become worn which
Lucy had brought with her, there must be something taken from the
tight-fitting income for that need. Arrangements had already been
made of which Lucy knew nothing, and already the two glasses of port
wine a day had been knocked off from poor Mr. Dosett's comforts. His
wife had sobbed in despair when he had said that it should be so. He
had declared gin and water to be as supporting as port wine, and the
thing had been done. Lucy inwardly had been disgusted by the gin and
water, knowing nothing of its history. Her father, who had not always
been punctual in paying his wine-merchant's bills, would not have
touched gin and water, would not have allowed it to contaminate his
table! Everything in Mr. Dosett's house was paid for weekly.

And now Lucy, who had been made welcome to all that the genteel house
could afford, who had been taken in as a child, had spoken of her
lot as one which was all sorrowful. Bad as it is,--this living in
Kingsbury Crescent,--I would rather bear it myself than subject Ayala
to such misery! It was thus that she had, in fact, spoken of her new
home when she had found it necessary to defend her feelings towards
her sister. It was impossible that her aunt should be altogether
silent under such treatment. "We have done the best for you that is
in our power, Lucy," she said, with a whole load of reproach in her
tone.

"Have I complained, aunt?"

"I thought you did."

"Oh, no! You asked me whether I envied Ayala. What was I to say?
Perhaps I should have said nothing, but the idea of envying Ayala was
painful to me. Of course she--"

"Well?"

"I had better say nothing more, aunt. If I were to pretend to be
cheerful I should be false. It is as yet only a few weeks since papa
died." Then the work went on in silence between them for the next
hour.

And the work went on in solemn silence between them through the
winter. It came to pass that the sole excitement of Lucy's life
came from Ayala's letters,--the sole excitement except a meeting
which took place between the sisters one day. When Lucy was taken to
Kingsbury Crescent Ayala was at once carried down to Glenbogie, and
from thence there came letters twice a week for six weeks. Ayala's
letters, too, were full of sorrow. She, too, had lost her mother,
her father, and her sister. Moreover, in her foolish petulance she
said things of her Aunt Emmeline, and of the girls, and of Sir
Thomas, which ought not to have been written of those who were
kind to her. Her cousin Tom, too, she ridiculed,--Tom Tringle, the
son-and-heir,--saying that he was a lout who endeavoured to make eyes
at her. Oh, how distasteful, how vulgar they were after all that
she had known. Perhaps the eldest girl, Augusta, was the worst. She
did not think that she could put up with the assumed authority of
Augusta. Gertrude was better, but a simpleton. Ayala declared herself
to be sad at heart. But then the sweet scenery of Glenbogie, and the
colour of the moors, and the glorious heights of Ben Alchan, made
some amends. Even in her sorrow she would rave about the beauties of
Glenbogie. Lucy, as she read the letters, told herself that Ayala's
grief was a grief to be borne, a grief almost to be enjoyed. To sit
and be sad with a stream purling by you, how different from the
sadness of that dining-room in the Crescent. To look out upon the
glories of a mountain, while a tear would now and again force itself
into the eye, how much less bitter than the falling of salt drops
over a tattered towel.

Lucy, in her answers, endeavoured to repress the groans of her
spirit. In the first place she did acknowledge that it did not become
her to speak ill of those who were, in truth, her benefactors; and
then she was anxious not to declare to Ayala her feeling of the
injustice by which their two lots had been defined to them. Though
she had failed to control herself once or twice in speaking to her
aunt she did control herself in writing her letters. She would never,
never, write a word which should make Ayala unnecessarily unhappy. On
that she was determined. She would say nothing to explain to Ayala
the unutterable tedium of that downstairs parlour in which they
passed their lives, lest Ayala should feel herself to be wounded by
the luxurious comforts around her.

It was thus she wrote. Then there came a time in which they were to
meet,--just at the beginning of November. The Tringles were going to
Rome. They generally did go somewhere. Glenbogie, Merle Park, and the
house in Queen's Gate, were not enough for the year. Sir Thomas was
to take them to Rome, and then return to London for the manipulation
of the millions in Lombard Street. He generally did remain nine
months out of the twelve in town, because of the millions, making his
visits at Merle Park very short; but Lady Tringle found that change
of air was good for the girls. It was her intention now to remain at
Rome for two or three months.

The party from Scotland reached Queen's Gate late one Saturday
evening, and intended to start early on the Monday. To Ayala, who had
made it quite a matter of course that she should see her sister, Lady
Tringle had said that in that case a carriage must be sent across.
It was awkward, because there were no carriages in London. She had
thought that they had all intended to pass through London just as
though they were not stopping. Sunday, she had thought, was not to
be regarded as being a day at all. Then Ayala flashed up. She had
flashed up some times before. Was it supposed that she was not going
to see Lucy? Carriage! She would walk across Kensington Gardens, and
find the house out all by herself. She would spend the whole day with
Lucy, and come back alone in a cab. She was strong enough, at any
rate, to have her way so far, that a carriage, wherever it came from,
was sent for Lucy about three in the afternoon, and did take her back
to Kingsbury Crescent after dinner.

Then at last the sisters were together in Ayala's bed-room. "And now
tell me about everything," said Ayala.

But Lucy was resolved that she would not tell anything. "I am so
wretched!" That would have been all; but she would not tell her
wretchedness. "We are so quiet in Kingsbury Crescent," she said; "you
have so much more to talk of."

"Oh, Lucy, I do not like it."

"Not your aunt?"

"She is not the worst, though she sometimes is hard to bear. I
can't tell you what it is, but they all seem to think so much of
themselves. In the first place they never will say a word about
papa."

"Perhaps that is from feeling, Ayey."

"No, it is not. One would know that. But they look down upon papa,
who had more in his little finger than they have with all their
money."

"Then I should hold my tongue."

"So I do,--about him; but it is very hard. And then Augusta has a way
with me, as though she had a right to order me. I certainly will not
be ordered by Augusta. You never ordered me."

"Dear Ayey!"

"Augusta is older than you,--of course, ever so much. They make her
out twenty-three at her last birthday, but she is twenty-four. But
that is not difference enough for ordering,--certainly between
cousins. I do hate Augusta."

"I would not hate her."

"How is one to help one's-self? She has a way of whispering to
Gertrude, and to her mother, when I am there, which almost kills me.
'If you'll only give me notice I'll go out of the room at once,' I
said the other day, and they were all so angry."

"I would not make them angry if I were you, Ayey."

"Why not?"

"Not Sir Thomas, or Aunt Emmeline."

"I don't care a bit for Sir Thomas. I am not sure but he is the most
good-natured, though he is so podgy. Of course, when Aunt Emmeline
tells me anything I do it."

"It is so important that you should be on good terms with them."

"I don't see it at all," said Ayala, flashing round.

"Aunt Emmeline can do so much for you. We have nothing of our
own,--you and I."

"Am I to sell myself because they have got money! No, indeed! No one
despises money so much as I do. I will never be other to them than if
I had the money, and they were the poor relations."

"That will not do, Ayey."

"I will make it do. They may turn me out if they like. Of course, I
know that I should obey my aunt, and so I will. If Sir Thomas told
me anything I should do it. But not Augusta." Then, while Lucy was
thinking how she might best put into soft words advice which was so
clearly needed, Ayala declared another trouble. "But there is worse
still."

"What is that?"

"Tom!"

"What does Tom do?"

"You know Tom, Lucy?"

"I have seen him."

"Of all the horrors he is the horridest."

"Does he order you about?"

"No; but he--"

"What is it, Ayey?"

"Oh! Lucy, he is so dreadful. He--"

"You don't mean that he makes love to you?"

"He does. What am I to do, Lucy?"

"Do they know it?"

"Augusta does, I'm sure; and pretends to think that it is my fault.
I am sure that there will be a terrible quarrel some day. I told him
the day before we left Glenbogie that I should tell his mother. I did
indeed. Then he grinned. He is such a fool. And when I laughed he
took it all as kindness. I couldn't have helped laughing if I had
died for it."

"But he has been left behind."

"Yes, for the present. But he is to come over to us some time after
Christmas, when Uncle Tringle has gone back."

"A girl need not be bothered by a lover unless she chooses, Ayey."

"But it will be such a bother to have to talk about it. He looks at
me, and is such an idiot. Then Augusta frowns. When I see Augusta
frowning I am so angry that I feel like boxing her ears. Do you know,
Lucy, that I often think that it will not do, and that I shall have
to be sent away. I wish it had been you that they had chosen."

Such was the conversation between the girls. Of what was said
everything appertained to Ayala. Of the very nature of Lucy's life
not a word was spoken. As Ayala was talking Lucy was constantly
thinking of all that might be lost by her sister's imprudence. Even
though Augusta might be disagreeable, even though Tom might be a
bore, it should all be borne,--borne at any rate for a while,--seeing
how terrible would be the alternative. The alternative to Lucy seemed
to be Kingsbury Crescent and Aunt Dosett. It did not occur to her to
think whether in any possible case Ayala would indeed be added to the
Crescent family, or what in that case would become of herself, and
whether they two might live with Aunt Dosett, and whether in that
case life would not be infinitely improved. Ayala had all that money
could do for her, and would have such a look-out into the world from
a wealthy house as might be sure at last to bring her some such
husband as would be desirable. Ayala, in fact, had everything before
her, and Lucy had nothing. Wherefore it became Lucy's duty to warn
Ayala, so that she should bear with much, and throw away nothing. If
Ayala could only know what life might be, what life was at Kingsbury
Crescent, then she would be patient, then she would softly make a
confidence with her aunt as to Tom's folly, then she would propitiate
Augusta. Not care for money! Ayala had not yet lived in an ugly room
and darned sheets all the morning. Ayala had never sat for two hours
between the slumbers of Uncle Dosett and the knitting of Aunt Dosett.
Ayala had not been brought into contact with gin and water.

"Oh, Ayala!" she said, as they were going down to dinner together,
"do struggle; do bear it. Tell Aunt Emmeline. She will like you to
tell her. If Augusta wants you to go anywhere, do go. What does it
signify? Papa and mamma are gone, and we are alone." All this she
said without a word of allusion to her own sufferings. Ayala made a
half promise. She did not think she would go anywhere for Augusta's
telling; but she would do her best to satisfy Aunt Emmeline. Then
they went to dinner, and after dinner Lucy was taken home without
further words between them.

Ayala wrote long letters on her journey, full of what she saw, and
full of her companions. From Paris she wrote, and then from Turin,
and then again on their immediate arrival at Rome. Her letters were
most imprudent as written from the close vicinity of her aunt and
cousin. It was such a comfort that that oaf Tom had been left behind.
Uncle Tringle was angry because he did not get what he liked to eat.
Aunt Emmeline gave that courier such a terrible life, sending for him
every quarter of an hour. Augusta would talk first French and then
Italian, of which no one could understand a word. Gertrude was so
sick with travelling that she was as pale as a sheet. Nobody seemed
to care for anything. She could not get her aunt to look at the
Campanile at Florence, or her cousins to know one picture from
another. "As for pictures, I am quite sure that Mangle's angels would
do as well as Raffael's." Mangle was a brother academician whom their
father had taught them to despise. There was contempt, most foolish
contempt, for all the Tringles; but, luckily, there had been no
quarrelling. Then it seemed that both in Paris and in Florence Ayala
had bought pretty things, from which it was to be argued that her
uncle had provided her liberally with money. One pretty thing had
been sent from Paris to Lucy, which could not have been bought for
less than many franks. It would not be fair that Ayala should take so
much without giving something in return.

Lucy knew that she too should give something in return. Though
Kingsbury Crescent was not attractive, though Aunt Dosett was not to
her a pleasant companion, she had begun to realise the fact that it
behoved her to be grateful, if only for the food she ate, and for the
bed on which she slept. As she thought of all that Ayala owed she
remembered also her own debts. As the winter went on she struggled to
pay them. But Aunt Dosett was a lady not much given to vacillation.
She had become aware at first that Lucy had been rough to her, and
she did not easily open herself to Lucy's endearments. Lucy's life at
Kingsbury Crescent had begun badly, and Lucy, though she understood
much about it, found it hard to turn a bad beginning to a good
result.




CHAPTER IV.

ISADORE HAMEL.


It was suggested to Lucy before she had been long in Kingsbury
Crescent that she should take some exercise. For the first week she
had hardly been out of the house; but this was attributed to her
sorrow. Then she had accompanied her aunt for a few days during the
half-hour's marketing which took place every morning, but in this
there had been no sympathy. Lucy would not interest herself in
the shoulder of mutton which must be of just such a weight as to
last conveniently for two days,--twelve pounds,--of which, it was
explained to her, more than one-half was intended for the two
servants, because there was always a more lavish consumption in the
kitchen than in the parlour. Lucy would not appreciate the fact that
eggs at a penny a piece, whatever they might be, must be used for
puddings, as eggs with even a reputation of freshness cost twopence.
Aunt Dosett, beyond this, never left the house on week-days except
for a few calls which were made perhaps once a month, on which
occasion the Sunday gloves and the Sunday silk dress were used. On
Sunday they all went to church. But this was not enough for exercise,
and as Lucy was becoming pale she was recommended to take to walking
in Kensington Gardens.

It is generally understood that there are raging lions about the
metropolis, who would certainly eat up young ladies whole if young
ladies were to walk about the streets or even about the parks by
themselves. There is, however, beginning to be some vacillation as
to the received belief on this subject as regards London. In large
continental towns, such as Paris and Vienna, young ladies would be
devoured certainly. Such, at least, is the creed. In New York and
Washington there are supposed to be no lions, so that young ladies
go about free as air. In London there is a rising doubt, under which
before long, probably, the lions will succumb altogether. Mrs. Dosett
did believe somewhat in lions, but she believed also in exercise. And
she was aware that the lions eat up chiefly rich people. Young ladies
who must go about without mothers, brothers, uncles, carriages, or
attendants of any sort, are not often eaten or even roared at. It
is the dainty darlings for whom the roarings have to be feared. Mrs.
Dosett, aware that daintiness was no longer within the reach of her
and hers, did assent to these walkings in Kensington Gardens. At some
hour in the afternoon Lucy would walk from the house by herself, and
within a quarter of an hour would find herself on the broad gravel
path which leads down to the Round Pond. From thence she would go by
the back of the Albert Memorial, and then across by the Serpentine
and return to the same gate, never leaving Kensington Gardens. Aunt
Dosett had expressed some old-fashioned idea that lions were more
likely to roar in Hyde Park than within the comparatively retired
purlieus of Kensington.

Now the reader must be taken back for a few moments to the bijou, as
the bijou was before either the artist or his wife had died. In those
days there had been a frequent concourse of people in the artist's
house. Society there had not consisted chiefly of eating and
drinking. Men and women would come in and out as though really for
a purpose of talking. There would be three or four constantly with
Dormer in his studio, helping him but little perhaps in the real
furtherance of his work, though discussing art subjects in a manner
calculated to keep alive art-feeling among them. A novelist or two of
a morning might perhaps aid me in my general pursuit, but would, I
think, interfere with the actual tally of pages. Egbert Dormer did
not turn out from his hand so much work as some men that I know, but
he was overflowing with art up to his ears;--and with tobacco, so
that, upon the whole, the bijou was a pleasant rendezvous.

There had come there of late, quite of late, a young sculptor, named
Isadore Hamel. Hamel was an Englishman, who, however, had been
carried very early to Rome and had been bred there. Of his mother
question never was made, but his father had been well known as an
English sculptor resident at Rome. The elder Hamel had been a man of
mark, who had a fine suite of rooms in the city and a villa on one
of the lakes, but who never came to England. English connections
were, he said, to him abominable, by which he perhaps meant that the
restrictions of decent life were not to his taste. But his busts
came, and his groups in marble, and now and again some great work for
some public decoration: so that money was plentiful with him, and
he was a man of note. It must be acknowledged of him that he spared
nothing in bringing up his son, giving him such education as might
best suit his future career as an artist, and that money was always
forthcoming for the lad's wants and fantasies.

Then young Hamel also became a sculptor of much promise; but early in
life differed from his father on certain subjects of importance. The
father was wedded to Rome and to Italy. Isadore gradually expressed
an opinion that the nearer a man was to his market the better for
him, that all that art could do for a man in Rome was as nothing
to the position which a great artist might make for himself in
London,--that, in fact, an Englishman had better be an Englishman. At
twenty-six he succeeded in his attempt, and became known as a young
sculptor with a workshop at Brompton. He became known to many both
by his work and his acquirements; but it may not be surprising that
after a year he was still unable to live, as he had been taught to
live, without drawing upon his father. Then his father threw his
failure in his teeth, not refusing him money indeed, but making the
receipt of it unpleasant to him.

At no house had Isadore Hamel been made so welcome as at Dormer's.
There was a sympathy between them both on that great question of
art, whether to an artist his art should be a matter to him of more
importance than all the world besides. So said Dormer,--who simply
died because his wife died, who could not have touched his brush if
one of his girls had been suffering, who, with all his genius, was
but a faineant workman. His art more than all the world to him!
No, not to him. Perhaps here and again to some enthusiast, and him
hardly removed from madness! Where is the painter who shall paint a
picture after his soul's longing though he shall get not a penny for
it,--though he shall starve as he put his last touch to it, when he
knows that by drawing some duchess of the day he shall in a fortnight
earn a ducal price? Shall a wife and child be less dear to him than
to a lawyer,--or to a shoemaker; or the very craving of his hunger
less obdurate? A man's self, and what he has within him and his
belongings, with his outlook for this and other worlds,--let that
be the first, and the work, noble or otherwise, be the second.
To be honest is greater than to have painted the San Sisto, or
to have chiselled the Apollo; to have assisted in making others
honest,--infinitely greater. All of which were discussed at great
length at the bijou, and the bijouites always sided with the
master of the house. To an artist, said Dormer, let his art be
everything,--above wife and children, above money, above health,
above even character. Then he would put out his hand with his
jewelled finger, and stretch forth his velvet-clad arm, and soon
after lead his friend away to the little dinner at which no luxury
had been spared. But young Hamel agreed with the sermons, and not the
less because Lucy Dormer had sat by and listened to them with rapt
attention.

Not a word of love had been spoken to her by the sculptor when her
mother died, but there had been glances and little feelings of which
each was half conscious. It is so hard for a young man to speak of
love, if there be real love,--so impossible that a girl should do so!
Not a word had been spoken, but each had thought that the other must
have known. To Lucy a word had been spoken by her mother,--"Do not
think too much of him till you know," the mother had said,--not
quite prudently. "Oh, no! I will think of him not at all," Lucy had
replied. And she had thought of him day and night. "I wonder why Mr.
Hamel is so different with you?" Ayala had said to her sister. "I am
sure he is not different with me," Lucy had replied. Then Ayala had
shaken her full locks and smiled.

Things came quickly after that. Mrs. Dormer had sickened and died.
There was no time then for thinking of that handsome brow, of
that short jet black hair, of those eyes so full of fire and
thoughtfulness, of that perfect mouth, and the deep but yet soft
voice. Still even in her sorrow this new god of her idolatry was not
altogether forgotten. It was told to her that he had been summoned
off to Rome by his father, and she wondered whether he was to find
his home at Rome for ever. Then her father was ill, and in his
illness Hamel came to say one word of farewell before he started.

"You find me crushed to the ground," the painter said. Something the
young man whispered as to the consolation which time would bring.
"Not to me," said Dormer. "It is as though one had lost his eyes. One
cannot see without his eyes." It was true of him. His light had been
put out.

Then, on the landing at the top of the stairs, there had been one
word between Lucy and the sculptor. "I ought not to have intruded on
you perhaps," he said; "but after so much kindness I could hardly go
without a word."

"I am sure he will be glad that you have come."

"And you?"

"I am glad too,--so that I may say good-bye." Then she put out her
hand, and he held it for a moment as he looked into her eyes. There
was not a word more, but it seemed to Lucy as though there had been
so many words.

Things went on quickly. Egbert Dormer died, and Lucy was taken away
to Kingsbury Crescent. When once Ayala had spoken about Mr. Hamel,
Lucy had silenced her. Any allusion to the idea of love wounded her,
as though it was too impossible for dreams, too holy for words. How
should there be words about a lover when father and mother were both
dead? He had gone to his old and natural home. He had gone, and of
course he would not return. To Ayala, when she came up to London
early in November, to Ayala, who was going to Rome, where Isadore
Hamel now was, Isadore Hamel's name was not mentioned. But through
the long mornings of her life, through the long evenings, through the
long nights, she still thought of him,--she could not keep herself
from thinking. To a girl whose life is full of delights her lover
need not be so very much,--need not, at least, be everything.
Though he be a lover to be loved at all points, her friends will be
something, her dancing, her horse, her theatre-going, her brothers
and sisters, even her father and mother. But Lucy had nothing. The
vision of Isadore Hamel had passed across her life, and had left with
her the only possession that she had. It need hardly be said that
she never alluded to that possession at Kingsbury Crescent. It was
not a possession from which any enjoyment could come except that of
thinking of it. He had passed away from her, and there was no point
of life at which he could come across her again. There was no longer
that half-joint studio. If it had been her lot to be as was Ayala,
she then would have been taken to Rome. Then again he would have
looked into her eyes and taken her hand in his. Then perhaps--.
But now, even though he were to come back to London, he would know
nothing of her haunts. Even in that case nothing would bring them
together. As the idea was crossing her mind,--as it did cross it
so frequently,--she saw him turning from the path on which she was
walking, making his way towards the steps of the Memorial.

Though she saw no more than his back she was sure that it was Isadore
Hamel. For a moment there was an impulse on her to run after him and
to call his name. It was then early in January, and she was taking
her daily walk through Kensington Gardens. She had walked there daily
now for the last two months and had never spoken a word or been
addressed,--had never seen a face that she had recognised. It had
seemed to her that she had not an acquaintance in the world except
Uncle Reg and Aunt Dosett. And now, almost within reach of her hand,
was the one being in all the world whom she most longed to see. She
did stand, and the word was formed within her lips; but she could not
speak it. Then came the thought that she would run after him, but the
thought was expelled quickly. Though she might lose him again and for
ever she could not do that. She stood almost gasping till he was out
of sight, and then she passed on upon her usual round.

She never omitted her walks after that, and always paused a moment
as the path turned away to the Memorial. It was not that she thought
that she might meet him there,--there rather than elsewhere,--but
there is present to us often an idea that when some object has passed
from us that we have desired then it may be seen again. Day after
day, and week after week, she did not see him. During this time there
came letters from Ayala, saying that their return to England was
postponed till the first week in February,--that she would certainly
see Lucy in February,--that she was not going to be hurried through
London in half-an-hour because her aunt wished it; and that she would
do as she pleased as to visiting her sister. Then there was a word
or two about Tom,--"Oh, Tom--that idiot Tom!" And another word or
two about Augusta. "Augusta is worse than ever. We have not spoken
to each other for the last day or two." This came but a day or two
before the intended return of the Tringles.

No actual day had been fixed. But on the day before that on which
Lucy thought it probable that the Tringles might return to town she
was again walking in the Gardens. Having put two and two together,
as people do, she felt sure that the travellers could not be away
more than a day or two longer. Her mind was much intent upon Ayala,
feeling that the imprudent girl was subjecting herself to great
danger, knowing that it was wrong that she and Augusta should be
together in the house without speaking,--thinking of her sister's
perils,--when, of a sudden, Hamel was close before her! There was no
question of calling to him now,--no question of an attempt to see him
face to face. She had been wandering along the path with eyes fixed
upon the ground, when her name was sharply called, and they two were
close to each other. Hamel had a friend with him, and it seemed to
Lucy at once, that she could only bow to him, only mutter something,
and then pass on. How can a girl stand and speak to a gentleman in
public, especially when that gentleman has a friend with him? She
tried to look pleasant, bowed, smiled, muttered something, and was
passing on. But he was not minded to lose her thus immediately. "Miss
Dormer," he said, "I have seen your sister at Rome. May I not say a
word about her?"

Why should he not say a word about Ayala? In a minute he had left
his friend, and was walking back along the path with Lucy. There was
not much that he had to say about Ayala. He had seen Ayala and the
Tringles, and did manage to let it escape him that Lady Tringle
had not been very gracious to himself when once, in public, he had
claimed acquaintance with Ayala. But at that he simply smiled. Then
he had asked of Lucy where she lived. "With my uncle, Mr. Dosett,"
said Lucy, "at Kingsbury Crescent." Then, when he asked whether he
might call, Lucy, with many blushes, had said that her aunt did not
receive many visitors,--that her uncle's house was different from
what her father's had been.

"Shall I not see you at all, then?" he asked.

She did not like to ask him after his own purposes of life, whether
he was now a resident in London, or whether he intended to return to
Rome. She was covered with bashfulness, and dreaded to seem even to
be interested in his affairs. "Oh, yes," she said; "perhaps we may
meet some day."

"Here?" he asked.

"Oh, no; not here! It was only an accident." As she said this she
determined that she must walk no more in Kensington Gardens. It would
be dreadful, indeed, were he to imagine that she would consent to
make an appointment with him. It immediately occurred to her that the
lions were about, and that she must shut herself up.

"I have thought of you every day since I have been back," he said,
"and I did not know where to hear of you. Now that we have met am I
to lose you again!" Lose her! What did he mean by losing her? She,
too, had found a friend,--she who had been so friendless! Would it
not be dreadful to her, also, to lose him? "Is there no place where I
may ask of you?"

"When Ayala is back, and they are in town, perhaps I shall sometimes
be at Lady Tringle's," said Lucy, resolved that she would not tell
him of her immediate abode. This was, at any rate, a certain address
from where he might commence further inquiries, should he wish to
make inquiry; and as such he accepted it. "I think I had better go
now," said Lucy, trembling at the apparent impropriety of her present
conversation.

He knew that it was intended that he should leave her, and he went.
"I hope I have not offended you in coming so far."

"Oh, no." Then again she gave him her hand, and again there was the
same look as he took his leave.

When she got home, which was before the dusk, having resolved that
she must, at any rate, tell her aunt that she had met a friend, she
found that her uncle had returned from his office. This was a most
unusual occurrence. Her uncle, she knew, left Somerset House exactly
at half-past four, and always took an hour and a quarter for his
walk. She had never seen him in Kingsbury Crescent till a quarter
before six. "I have got letters from Rome," he said, in a solemn
voice.

"From Ayala?"

"One from Ayala, for you. It is here. And I have had one from my
sister, also; and one, in the course of the day, from your uncle
in Lombard Street. You had better read them!" There was something
terribly tragic in Uncle Dosett's voice as he spoke.

And so must the reader read the letters; but they must be delayed for
a few chapters.




CHAPTER V.

AT GLENBOGIE.


We must go back to Ayala's life during the autumn and winter. She was
rapidly whirled away to Glenbogie amidst the affectionate welcomings
of her aunt and cousins. All manner of good things were done for her,
as to presents and comforts. Young as she was, she had money given to
her, which was not without attraction; and though she was, of course,
in the depth of her mourning, she was made to understand that even
mourning might be made becoming if no expense were spared. No expense
among the Tringles ever was spared, and at first Ayala liked the
bounty of profusion. But before the end of the first fortnight there
grew upon her a feeling that even bank notes become tawdry if you are
taught to use them as curl-papers. It may be said that nothing in the
world is charming unless it be achieved at some trouble. If it rained
"'64 Leoville,"--which I regard as the most divine of nectars,--I
feel sure that I should never raise it to my lips. Ayala did not
argue the matter out in her mind, but in very early days she began to
entertain a dislike to Tringle magnificence. There had been a good
deal of luxury at the bijou, but always with a feeling that it ought
not to be there,--that more money was being spent than prudence
authorised,--which had certainly added a savour to the luxuries. A
lovely bonnet, is it not more lovely because the destined wearer
knows that there is some wickedness in achieving it? All the bonnets,
all the claret, all the horses, seemed to come at Queen's Gate and at
Glenbogie without any wickedness. There was no more question about
them than as to one's ordinary bread and butter at breakfast. Sir
Thomas had a way,--a merit shall we call it or a fault?--of pouring
out his wealth upon the family as though it were water running in
perpetuity from a mountain tarn. Ayala the romantic, Ayala the
poetic, found very soon that she did not like it.

Perhaps the only pleasure left to the very rich is that of thinking
of the deprivations of the poor. The bonnets, and the claret, and the
horses, have lost their charm; but the Gladstone, and the old hats,
and the four-wheeled cabs of their neighbours, still have a little
flavour for them. From this source it seemed to Ayala that the
Tringles drew much of the recreation of their lives. Sir Thomas
had his way of enjoying this amusement, but it was a way that did
not specially come beneath Ayala's notice. When she heard that
Break-at-last, the Huddersfield manufacturer, had to sell his
pictures, and that all Shoddy and Stuffgoods' grand doings for
the last two years had only been a flash in the pan, she did not
understand enough about it to feel wounded; but when she heard her
aunt say that people like the Poodles had better not have a place
in Scotland than have to let it, and when Augusta hinted that Lady
Sophia Smallware had pawned her diamonds, then she felt that her
nearest and dearest relatives smelt abominably of money.

Of all the family Sir Thomas was most persistently the kindest to
her, though he was a man who did not look to be kind. She was pretty,
and though he was ugly himself he liked to look at things pretty. He
was, too, perhaps, a little tired of his own wife and daughters,--who
were indeed what he had made them, but still were not quite to his
taste. In a general way he gave instructions that Ayala should
be treated exactly as a daughter, and he informed his wife that
he intended to add a codicil to his will on her behalf. "Is that
necessary?" asked Lady Tringle, who began to feel something like
natural jealousy. "I suppose I ought to do something for a girl if
I take her by the hand," said Sir Thomas, roughly. "If she gets a
husband I will give her something, and that will do as well." Nothing
more was said about it, but when Sir Thomas went up to town the
codicil was added to his will.

Ayala was foolish rather than ungrateful, not understanding the
nature of the family to which she was relegated. Before she had been
taken away she had promised Lucy that she would be "obedient" to her
aunt. There had hardly been such a word as obedience known at the
bijou. If any were obedient, it was the mother and the father to the
daughters. Lucy, and Ayala as well, had understood something of this;
and therefore Ayala had promised to be obedient to her aunt. "And to
Uncle Thomas," Lucy had demanded, with an imploring embrace. "Oh,
yes," said Ayala, dreading her uncle at that time. She soon learned
that no obedience whatsoever was exacted from Sir Thomas. She had to
kiss him morning and evening, and then to take whatever presents he
made her. An easy uncle he was to deal with, and she almost learned
to love him. Nor was Aunt Emmeline very exigeant, though she was
fantastic and sometimes disagreeable. But Augusta was the great
difficulty. Lucy had not told her to obey Augusta, and Augusta she
would not obey. Now Augusta demanded obedience.

"You never ordered me," Ayala had said to Lucy when they met in
London as the Tringles were passing through. At the bijou there had
been a republic, in which all the inhabitants and all the visitors
had been free and equal. Such republicanism had been the very
mainspring of life at the bijou. Ayala loved equality, and she
specially felt that it should exist among sisters. Do anything for
Lucy? Oh, yes, indeed, anything; abandon anything; but for Lucy as a
sister among sisters, not for an elder as from a younger! And if she
were not bound to serve Lucy then certainly not Augusta. But Augusta
liked to be served. On one occasion she sent Ayala upstairs, and on
another she sent Ayala down-stairs. Ayala went, but determined to
be equal with her cousin. On the morning following, in the presence
of Aunt Emmeline and of Gertrude, in the presence also of two other
ladies who were visiting at the house, she asked Augusta if she would
mind running upstairs and fetching her scrap-book! She had been
thinking about it all the night and all the morning, plucking up her
courage. But she had been determined. She found a great difficulty in
saying the words, but she said them. The thing was so preposterous
that all the ladies in the room looked aghast at the proposition. "I
really think that Augusta has got something else to do," said Aunt
Emmeline. "Oh, very well," said Ayala, and then they were all silent.
Augusta, who was employed on a silk purse, sat still and did not say
a word.

Had a great secret, or rather a great piece of news which pervaded
the family, been previously communicated to Ayala, she would not
probably have made so insane a suggestion. Augusta was engaged to
be married to the Honourable Septimus Traffick, the member for Port
Glasgow. A young lady who is already half a bride is not supposed
to run up and down stairs as readily as a mere girl. For running up
and down stairs at the bijou Ayala had been proverbial. They were a
family who ran up and down with the greatest alacrity. "Oh, papa, my
basket is out on the seat"--for there had been a seat in the two-foot
garden behind the house. Papa would go down in two jumps and come up
with three skips, and there was the basket, only because his girl
liked him to do something for her. But for him Ayala would run about
as though she were a tricksy Ariel. Had the important matrimonial
news been conveyed to Ariel, with a true girl's spirit she would have
felt that during the present period Augusta was entitled to special
exemption from all ordering. Had she herself been engaged she would
have run more and quicker than ever,--would have been excited thereto
by the peculiar vitality of her new prospects; but to even Augusta
she would be subservient, because of her appreciation of bridal
importance. She, however, had not been told till that afternoon.

"You should not have asked Augusta to go up stairs," said Aunt
Emmeline, in a tone of mitigated reproach.

"Oh! I didn't know," said Ayala.

"You had meant to say that because she had sent you you were to send
her. There is a difference, you know."

"I didn't know," said Ayala, beginning to think that she would fight
her battle if told of such differences as she believed to exist.

"I had meant to tell you before, but I may as well tell you now,
Augusta is engaged to be married to the Honourable Mr. Septimus
Traffick. He is second son of Lord Boardotrade, and is in the House."

"Dear me!" said Ayala, acknowledging at once within her heart that
the difference alleged was one against which she need not rouse
herself to the fight. Aunt Emmeline had, in truth, intended to insist
on that difference--and another; but her courage had failed her.

"Yes, indeed. He is a man very much thought of just now in public
life, and Augusta's mind is naturally much occupied. He writes all
those letters in The Times about supply and demand."

"Does he, aunt?" Ayala did feel that if Augusta's mind was entirely
occupied with supply and demand she ought not to be made to go
upstairs to fetch a scrap-book. But she had her doubts about
Augusta's mind. Nevertheless, if the forthcoming husband were true,
that might be a reason. "If anybody had told me before I wouldn't
have asked her," she said.

Then Lady Tringle explained that it had been thought better not to
say anything heretofore as to the coming matrimonial hilarities
because of the sadness which had fallen upon the Dormer family. Ayala
accepted this as an excuse, and nothing further was said as to the
iniquity of her request to her cousin. But there was a general
feeling among the women that Ayala, in lieu of gratitude, had
exhibited an intention of rebelling.

On the next day Mr. Traffick arrived, whose coming had probably
made it necessary that the news should be told. Ayala was never so
surprised in her life as when she saw him. She had never yet had a
lover of her own, had never dreamed of a lover, but she had her own
idea as to what a lover ought to be. She had thought that Isadore
Hamel would be a very nice lover--for her sister. Hamel was young,
handsome, with a great deal to say on such a general subject as art,
but too bashful to talk easily to the girl he admired. Ayala had
thought that all that was just as it should be. She was altogether
resolved that Hamel and her sister should be lovers, and was
determined to be devoted to her future brother-in-law. But the
Honourable Septimus Traffick! It was a question to her whether her
Uncle Tringle would not have been better as a lover.

And yet there was nothing amiss about Mr. Traffick. He was very much
like an ordinary hard-working member of the House of Commons, over
perhaps rather than under forty years of age. He was somewhat bald,
somewhat grey, somewhat fat, and had lost that look of rosy plumpness
which is seldom, I fear, compatible with hard work and late hours. He
was not particularly ugly, nor was he absurd in appearance. But he
looked to be a disciple of business, not of pleasure, nor of art. "To
sit out on the bank of a stream and have him beside one would not be
particularly nice," thought Ayala to herself. Mr. Traffick no doubt
would have enjoyed it very well if he could have spared the time; but
to Ayala it seemed that such a man as that could have cared nothing
for love. As soon as she saw him, and realised in her mind the fact
that Augusta was to become his wife, she felt at once the absurdity
of sending Augusta on a message.

Augusta that evening was somewhat more than ordinarily kind to her
cousin. Now that the great secret was told, her cousin no doubt
would recognise her importance. "I suppose you had not heard of him
before?" she said to Ayala.

"I never did."

"That's because you have not attended to the debates."

"I never have. What are debates?"

"Mr. Traffick is very much thought of in the House of Commons on all
subjects affecting commerce."

"Oh!"

"It is the most glorious study which the world affords."

"The House of Commons. I don't think it can be equal to art."

Then Augusta turned up her nose with a double turn,--first as against
painters, Mr. Dormer having been no more, and then at Ayala's
ignorance in supposing that the House of Commons could have been
spoken of as a study. "Mr. Traffick will probably be in the
government some day," she said.

"Has not he been yet?" asked Ayala.

"Not yet."

"Then won't he be very old before he gets there?" This was a terrible
question. Young ladies of five-and-twenty, when they marry gentlemen
of four-and-fifty, make up their minds for well-understood and
well-recognised old age. They see that they had best declare their
purpose, and they do declare it. "Of course, Mr. Walker is old enough
to be my father, but I have made up my mind that I like that better
than anything else." Then the wall has been jumped, and the thing can
go smoothly. But at forty-five there is supposed to be so much of
youth left that the difference of age may possibly be tided over and
not made to appear abnormal. Augusta Tringle had determined to tide
it over in this way. The forty-five had been gradually reduced to
"less than forty,"--though all the Peerages were there to give the
lie to the assertion. She talked of her lover as Septimus, and was
quite prepared to sit with him beside a stream if only half-an-hour
for the amusement could be found. When, therefore, Ayala suggested
that if her lover wanted to get into office he had better do so
quickly, lest he should be too old, Augusta was not well pleased.

"Lord Boardotrade was much older when he began," said Augusta. "His
friends, indeed, tell Septimus that he should not push himself
forward too quickly. But I don't think that I ever came across any
one who was so ignorant of such things as you are, Ayala."

"Perhaps he is not so old as he looks," said Ayala. After this it may
be imagined that there was not close friendship between the cousins.
Augusta's mind was filled with a strong conception as to Ayala's
ingratitude. The houseless, penniless orphan had been taken in, and
had done nothing but make herself disagreeable. Young! No doubt she
was young. But had she been as old as Methuselah she could not have
been more insolent. It did not, however, matter to her, Augusta.
She was going away; but it would be terrible to her mamma and to
Gertrude! Thus it was that Augusta spoke of her cousin to her mother.

And then there came another trouble, which was more troublesome to
Ayala even than the other. Tom Tringle, who was in the house in
Lombard Street, who was the only son, and heir to the title and no
doubt to much of the wealth, had chosen to take Ayala's part and to
enlist himself as her special friend. Ayala had, at first, accepted
him as a cousin, and had consented to fraternise with him. Then, on
some unfortunate day, there had been some word or look which she had
failed not to understand, and immediately she had become afraid of
Tom. Tom was not like Isadore Hamel,--was very far, indeed, from that
idea of a perfect lover which Ayala's mind had conceived; but he was
by no means a lout, or an oaf, or an idiot, as Ayala in her letters
to her sister had described him. He had been first at Eton and then
at Oxford, and having spent a great deal of money recklessly, and
done but little towards his education, had been withdrawn and put
into the office. His father declared of him now that he would do
fairly well in the world. He had a taste for dress, and kept four or
five hunters which he got but little credit by riding. He made a fuss
about his shooting, but did not shoot much. He was stout and awkward
looking,--very like his father, but without that settled air which
age gives to heavy men. In appearance he was not the sort of lover
to satisfy the preconceptions of such a girl as Ayala. But he was
good-natured and true. At last he became to her terribly true. His
love, such as it seemed at first, was absurd to her. "If you make
yourself such a fool, Tom, I'll never speak to you again," she had
said, once. Even after that she had not understood that it was
more than a stupid joke. But the joke, while it was considered as
such, was very distasteful to her; and afterwards, when a certain
earnestness in it was driven in upon her, it became worse than
distasteful.

She repudiated his love with such power as she had, but she could not
silence him. She could not at all understand that a young man, who
seemed to her to be an oaf, should really be in love,--honestly in
love with her. But such was the case. Then she became afraid lest
others should see it,--afraid, though she often told herself that she
would appeal to her aunt for protection. "I tell you I don't care a
bit about you, and you oughtn't to go on," she said. But he did go
on, and though her aunt did not see it Augusta did.

Then Augusta spoke a word to her in scorn. "Ayala," she said, "you
should not encourage Tom."

Encourage him! What a word from one girl to another! What a world
of wrong there was in the idea which had created the word! What an
absence of the sort of feeling which, according to Ayala's theory
of life, there should be on such a matter between two sisters, two
cousins, or two friends! Encourage him! When Augusta ought to have
been the first to assist her in her trouble! "Oh, Augusta," she said,
turning sharply round, "what a spiteful creature you are."

"I suppose you think so, because I do not choose to approve."

"Approve of what! Tom is thoroughly disagreeable. Sometimes he makes
my life such a burden to me that I think I shall have to go to my
aunt. But you are worse. Oh!" exclaimed Ayala, shuddering as she
thought of the unwomanly treachery of which her cousin was guilty
towards her.

Nothing more came of it at Glenbogie. Tom was required in Lombard
Street, and the matter was not suspected by Aunt Emmeline,--as far,
at least, as Ayala was aware. When he was gone it was to her as
though there would be a world of time before she would see him again.
They were to go to Rome, and he would not be at Rome till January.
Before that he might have forgotten his folly. But Ayala was quite
determined that she would never forget the ill offices of Augusta.
She did hate Augusta, as she had told her sister. Then, in this frame
of mind, the family was taken to Rome.




CHAPTER VI.

AT ROME.


During her journeying and during her sojourn at Rome Ayala did enjoy
much; but even these joys did not come to her without causing some
trouble of spirit. At Glenbogie everybody had known that she was a
dependent niece, and that as such she was in truth nobody. On that
morning when she had ordered Augusta to go upstairs the two visitors
had stared with amazement,--who would not have stared at all had
they heard Ayala ordered in the same way. But it came about that in
Rome Ayala was almost of more importance than the Tringles. It was
absolutely true that Lady Tringle and Augusta and Gertrude were asked
here and there because of Ayala; and the worst of it was that the
fact was at last suspected by the Tringles themselves. Sometimes they
would not always be asked. One of the Tringle girls would only be
named. But Ayala was never forgotten. Once or twice an effort was
made by some grand lady, whose taste was perhaps more conspicuous
than her good-nature, to get Ayala without burdening herself with any
of the Tringles. When this became clear to the mind of Augusta,--of
Augusta, engaged as she was to the Honourable Septimus Traffick,
Member of Parliament,--Augusta's feelings were--such as may better
be understood than described! "Don't let her go, mamma," she said to
Lady Tringle one morning.

"But the Marchesa has made such a point of it."

"Bother the Marchesa! Who is the Marchesa? I believe it is all
Ayala's doing because she expects to meet that Mr. Hamel. It is
dreadful to see the way she goes on."

"Mr. Hamel was a very intimate friend of her father's."

"I don't believe a bit of it."

"He certainly used to be at his house. I remember seeing him."

"I daresay; but that doesn't justify Ayala in running after him as
she does. I believe that all this about the Marchesa is because of
Mr. Hamel." This was better than believing that Ayala was to be asked
to sing, and that Ayala was to be fêted and admired and danced with,
simply because Ayala was Ayala, and that they, the Tringles, in spite
of Glenbogie, Merle Park, and Queen's Gate, were not wanted at all.
But when Aunt Emmeline signified to Ayala that on that particular
morning she had better not go to the Marchesa's picnic, Ayala simply
said that she had promised;--and Ayala went.

At this time no gentleman of the family was with them. Sir Thomas
had gone, and Tom Tringle had not come. Then, just at Christmas, the
Honourable Septimus Traffick came for a short visit,--a very short
visit, no more than four or five days, because Supply and Demand were
requiring all his services in preparation for the coming Session
of Parliament. But for five halcyon days he was prepared to devote
himself to the glories of Rome under the guidance of Augusta. He
did not of course sleep at the Palazzo Ruperti, where it delighted
Lady Tringle to inform her friends in Rome that she had a suite of
apartments "au première," but he ate there and drank there and almost
lived there; so that it became absolutely necessary to inform the
world of Rome that it was Augusta's destiny to become in course of
time the Honourable Mrs. Traffick, otherwise the close intimacy
would hardly have been discreet,--unless it had been thought, as the
ill-natured Marchesa had hinted, that Mr. Traffick was Lady Tringle's
elder brother. Augusta, however, was by no means ashamed of her
lover. Perhaps she felt that when it was known that she was about
to be the bride of so great a man then doors would be open for her
at any rate as wide as for her cousin. At this moment she was very
important to herself. She was about to convey no less a sum than
£120,000 to Mr. Traffick, who, in truth, as younger son of Lord
Boardotrade, was himself not well endowed. Considering her own
position and her future husband's rank and standing, she did not
know how a young woman could well be more important. She was very
important at any rate to Mr. Traffick. She was sure of that. When,
therefore, she learned that Ayala had been asked to a grand ball at
the Marchesa's, that Mr. Traffick was also to be among the guests,
and that none of the Tringles had been invited,--then her anger
became hot.

She must have been very stupid when she took it into her head to be
jealous of Mr. Traffick's attention to her cousin; stupid, at any
rate, when she thought that her cousin was laying out feminine lures
for Mr. Traffick. Poor Ayala! We shall see much of her in these
pages, and it may be well to declare of her at once that her ideas
at this moment about men,--or rather about a possible man,--were
confined altogether to the abstract. She had floating in her young
mind some fancies as to the beauty of love. That there should be a
hero must of course be necessary. But in her day-dreams this hero was
almost celestial,--or, at least, æthereal. It was a concentration
of poetic perfection to which there was not as yet any appanage of
apparel, of features, or of wealth. It was a something out of heaven
which should think it well to spend his whole time in adoring her
and making her more blessed than had ever yet been a woman upon the
earth. Then her first approach to a mundane feeling had been her
acknowledgment to herself that Isadore Hamel would do as a lover for
Lucy. Isadore Hamel was certainly very handsome,--was possessed of
infinite good gifts; but even he would by no means have come up to
her requirements for her own hero. That hero must have wings tinged
with azure, whereas Hamel had a not much more ætherealised than
ordinary coat and waistcoat. She knew that heroes with azure wings
were not existent save in the imagination, and, as she desired a real
lover for Lucy, Hamel would do. But for herself her imagination was
too valuable then to allow her to put her foot upon earth. Such as
she was, must not Augusta have been very stupid to have thought that
Ayala should become fond of her Mr. Traffick!

Her cousin Tom had come to her, and had been to her as a Newfoundland
dog is when he jumps all over you just when he has come out of a
horsepond. She would have liked Tom had he kept his dog-like gambols
at a proper distance. But when he would cover her with muddy water
he was abominable. But this Augusta had not understood. With Mr.
Traffick there would be no dog-like gambols; and, as he was not harsh
to her, Ayala liked him. She had liked her uncle. Such men were, to
her thinking, more like dogs than lovers. She sang when Mr. Traffick
asked her, and made a picture for him, and went with him to the
Coliseum, and laughed at him about Supply and Demand. She was very
pretty, and perhaps Mr. Traffick did like to look at her.

"I really think you were too free with Mr. Traffick last night,"
Augusta said to her one morning.

"Free! How free?"

"You were--laughing at him."

"Oh, he likes that," said Ayala. "All that time we were up at the top
of St. Peter's I was quizzing him about his speeches. He lets me say
just what I please."

This was wormwood. In the first place there had been a word or two
between the lovers about that going up of St. Peter's, and Augusta
had refused to join them. She had wished Septimus to remain down with
her,--which would have been tantamount to preventing any of the party
from going up; but Septimus had persisted on ascending. Then Augusta
had been left for a long hour alone with her mother. Gertrude had no
doubt gone up, but Gertrude had lagged during the ascent. Ayala had
skipped up the interminable stairs and Mr. Traffick had trotted after
her with admiring breathless industry. This itself, with the thoughts
of the good time which Septimus might be having at the top, was very
bad. But now to be told that she, Ayala, should laugh at him; and
that he, Septimus, should like it! "I suppose he takes you to be a
child," said Augusta; "but if you are a child you ought to conduct
yourself."

"I suppose he does perceive the difference," said Ayala.

She had not in the least known what the words might convey,--had
probably meant nothing. But to Augusta it was apparent that Ayala
had declared that her lover, her Septimus, had preferred her extreme
youth to the more mature charms of his own true love,--or had,
perhaps, preferred Ayala's raillery to Augusta's serious demeanour.
"You are the most impertinent person I ever knew in my life," said
Augusta, rising from her chair and walking slowly out of the room.
Ayala stared after her, not above half comprehending the cause of the
anger.

Then came the very serious affair of the ball. The Marchesa had asked
that her dear little friend Ayala Dormer might be allowed to come
over to a little dance which her own girls were going to have. Her
own girls were so fond of Ayala! There would be no trouble. There
was a carriage which would be going somewhere else, and she would be
fetched and taken home. Ayala at once declared that she intended to
go, and her Aunt Emmeline did not refuse her sanction. Augusta was
shocked, declaring that the little dance was to be one of the great
balls of the season, and pronouncing the whole to be a falsehood; but
the affair was arranged before she could stop it.

But Mr. Traffick's affair in the matter came more within her range.
"Septimus," she said, "I would rather you would not go to that
woman's party." Septimus had been asked only on the day before the
party,--as soon, indeed, as his arrival had become known to the
Marchesa.

"Why, my own one?"

"She has not treated mamma well,--nor yet me."

"Ayala is going." He had no right to call her Ayala. So Augusta
thought.

"My cousin is behaving badly in the matter, and mamma ought not to
allow her to go. Who knows anything about the Marchesa Baldoni?"

"Both he and she are of the very best families in Rome," said Mr.
Traffick, who knew everything about it.

"At any rate they are behaving very badly to us, and I will take it
as a favour that you do not go. Asking Ayala, and then asking you, as
good as from the same house, is too marked. You ought not to go."

Perhaps Mr. Traffick had on some former occasion felt some little
interference with his freedom of action. Perhaps he liked the
acquaintance of the Marchesa. Perhaps he liked Ayala Dormer. Be that
as it might, he would not yield. "Dear Augusta, it is right that I
should go there, if it be only for half-an-hour." This he said in a
tone of voice with which Augusta was already acquainted, which she
did not love, and which, when she heard it, would make her think of
her £120,000. When he had spoken he left her, and she began to think
of her £120,000.

They both went, Ayala and Mr. Traffick,--and Mr. Traffick, instead
of staying half-an-hour, brought Ayala back at three o'clock in the
morning. Though Mr. Traffick was nearly as old as Uncle Tringle, yet
he could dance. Ayala had been astonished to find how well he could
dance, and thought that she might please her cousin Augusta by
praising the juvenility of her lover at luncheon the next day. She
had not appeared at breakfast, but had been full of the ball at
lunch. "Oh, dear, yes, I dare say there were two hundred people
there."

"That is what she calls a little dance," said Augusta, with scorn.

"I suppose that is the Italian way of talking about it," said Ayala.

"Italian way! I hate Italian ways."

"Mr. Traffick liked it very much. I'm sure he'll tell you so. I had
no idea he would care to dance."

Augusta only shook herself and turned up her nose. Lady Tringle
thought it necessary to say something in defence of her daughter's
choice. "Why should not Mr. Traffick dance like any other gentleman?"

"Oh, I don't know. I thought that a man who makes so many speeches
in Parliament would think of something else. I was very glad he did,
for he danced three times with me. He can waltz as lightly as--" As
though he were young, she was going to say, but then she stopped
herself.

"He is the best dancer I ever danced with," said Augusta.

"But you almost never do dance," said Ayala.

"I suppose I may know about it as well as another," said Augusta,
angrily.

The next day was the last of Mr. Traffick's sojourn in Rome, and on
that day he and Augusta so quarrelled that, for a certain number of
hours, it was almost supposed in the family that the match would be
broken off. On the afternoon of the day after the dance Mr. Traffick
was walking with Ayala on the Pincian, while Augusta was absolutely
remaining behind with her mother. For a quarter-of-an-hour,--the
whole day, as it seemed to Augusta,--there was a full two hundred
yards between them. It was not that the engaged girl could not bear
the severance, but that she could not endure the attention paid to
Ayala. On the next morning "she had it out," as some people say, with
her lover. "If I am to be treated in this way you had better tell me
so at once," she said.

"I know no better way of treating you," said Mr. Traffick.

"Dancing with that chit all night, turning her head, and then walking
with her all the next day! I will not put up with such conduct."

Mr. Traffick valued £120,000 very highly, as do most men, and would
have done much to keep it; but he believed that the best way of
making sure of it would be by showing himself to be the master. "My
own one," he said, "you are really making an ass of yourself."

"Very well! Then I will write to papa, and let him know that it must
be all over."

For three hours there was terrible trouble in the apartments in the
Palazzo Ruperti, during which Mr. Traffick was enjoying himself by
walking up and down the Forum, and calculating how many Romans could
have congregated themselves in the space which is supposed to have
seen so much of the world's doings. During this time Augusta was
very frequently in hysterics; but, whether in hysterics or out of
them, she would not allow Ayala to come near her. She gave it to be
understood that Ayala had interfered fatally, foully, damnably, with
all her happiness. She demanded, from fit to fit, that telegrams
should be sent over to bring her father to Italy for her protection.
She would rave about Septimus, and then swear that, under no
consideration whatever, would she ever see him again. At the end
of three hours she was told that Septimus was in the drawing-room.
Lady Tringle had sent half-a-dozen messengers after him, and at last
he was found looking up at the Arch of Titus. "Bid him go," said
Augusta. "I never want to behold him again." But within two minutes
she was in his arms, and before dinner she was able to take a stroll
with him on the Pincian.

He left, like a thriving lover, high in the good graces of his
beloved; but the anger which had fallen on Ayala had not been
removed. Then came a rumour that the Marchesa, who was half English,
had called Ayala Cinderella, and the name had added fuel to the fire
of Augusta's wrath. There was much said about it between Lady Tringle
and her daughter, the aunt really feeling that more blame was being
attributed to Ayala than she deserved. "Perhaps she gives herself
airs," said Lady Tringle, "but really it is no more."

"She is a viper," said Augusta.

Gertrude rather took Ayala's part, telling her mother, in private,
that the accusation about Mr. Traffick was absurd. "The truth is,"
said Gertrude, "that Ayala thinks herself very clever and very
beautiful, and Augusta will not stand it." Gertrude acknowledged
that Ayala was upsetting and ungrateful. Poor Lady Tringle, in her
husband's absence, did not know what to do about her niece.

Altogether, they were uncomfortable after Mr. Traffick went and
before Tom Tringle had come. On no consideration whatsoever would
Augusta speak to her cousin. She declared that Ayala was a viper, and
would give no other reason. In all such quarrelings the matter most
distressing is that the evil cannot be hidden. Everybody at Rome who
knew the Tringles, or who knew Ayala, was aware that Augusta Tringle
would not speak to her cousin. When Ayala was asked she would shake
her locks, and open her eyes, and declare that she knew nothing about
it. In truth she knew very little about it. She remembered that
passage-at-arms about the going upstairs at Glenbogie, but she could
hardly understand that for so small an affront, and one so distant,
Augusta would now refuse to speak to her. That Augusta had always
been angry with her, and since Mr. Traffick's arrival more angry than
ever, she had felt; but that Augusta was jealous in respect to her
lover had never yet at all come home to Ayala. That she should have
wanted to captivate Mr. Traffick,--she with her high ideas of some
transcendental, more than human, hero!

But she had to put up with it, and to think of it. She had sense
enough to know that she was no more than a stranger in her aunt's
family, and that she must go if she made herself unpleasant to them.
She was aware that hitherto she had not succeeded with her residence
among them. Perhaps she might have to go. Some things she would
bear, and in them she would endeavour to amend her conduct. In other
matters she would hold her own, and go, if necessary. Though her
young imagination was still full of her unsubstantial hero,--though
she still had her castles in the air altogether incapable of
terrestrial foundation,--still there was a common sense about her
which told her that she must give and take. She would endeavour to
submit herself to her aunt. She would be kind,--as she had always
been kind,--to Gertrude. She would in all matters obey her uncle. Her
misfortune with the Newfoundland dog had almost dwindled out of her
mind. To Augusta she could not submit herself. But then Augusta,
as soon as the next session of Parliament should be over, would be
married out of the way. And, on her own part, she did think that her
aunt was inclined to take her part in the quarrel with Augusta.

Thus matters were going on in Rome when there came up another and a
worse cause for trouble.




CHAPTER VII.

TOM TRINGLE IN EARNEST.


Tom Tringle, though he had first appeared to his cousin Ayala as a
Newfoundland dog which might perhaps be pleasantly playful, and then,
as the same dog, very unpleasant because dripping with muddy water,
was nevertheless a young man with so much manly truth about him as to
be very much in love. He did not look like it; but then perhaps the
young men who do fall most absolutely into love do not look like it.
To Ayala her cousin Tom was as unloveable as Mr. Septimus Traffick.
She could like them both well enough while they would be kind to
her. But as to regarding cousin Tom as a lover,--the idea was so
preposterous to her that she could not imagine that any one else
should look upon it as real. But with Tom the idea had been real,
and was, moreover, permanent. The black locks which would be shaken
here and there, the bright glancing eyes which could be so joyous and
could be so indignant, the colour of her face which had nothing in it
of pink, which was brown rather, but over which the tell-tale blood
would rush with a quickness which was marvellous to him, the lithe
quick figure which had in it nothing of the weight of earth, the
little foot which in itself was a perfect joy, the step with all the
elasticity of a fawn,--these charms together had mastered him. Tom
was not romantic or poetic, but the romance and poetry of Ayala had
been divine to him. It is not always like to like in love. Titania
loved the weaver Bottom with the ass's head. Bluebeard, though a
bad husband, is supposed to have been fond of his last wife. The
Beauty has always been beloved by the Beast. To Ayala the thing
was monstrous;--but it was natural. Tom Tringle was determined to
have his way, and when he started for Rome was more intent upon his
love-making than all the glories of the Capitol and the Vatican.

When he first made his appearance before Ayala's eyes he was bedecked
in a manner that was awful to her. Down at Glenbogie he had affected
a rough attire, as is the custom with young men of ample means when
fishing, shooting, or the like, is supposed to be the employment
then in hand. The roughness had been a little overdone, but it had
added nothing to his own uncouthness. In London he was apt to run a
little towards ornamental gilding, but in London his tastes had been
tempered by the ill-natured criticism of the world at large. He had
hardly dared at Queen's Gate to wear his biggest pins; but he had
taken upon himself to think that at Rome an Englishman might expose
himself with all his jewelry. "Oh, Tom, I never saw anything so
stunning," his sister Gertrude said to him. He had simply frowned
upon her, and had turned himself to Ayala, as though Ayala, being
an artist, would be able to appreciate something beautiful in art.
Ayala had looked at him and had marvelled, and had ventured to hope
that, with his Glenbogie dress, his Glenbogie manners and Glenbogie
propensities would be changed.

At this time the family at Rome was very uncomfortable. Augusta would
not speak to her cousin, and had declared to her mother and sister
her determination never to speak to Ayala again. For a time Aunt
Emmeline had almost taken her niece's part, feeling that she might
best bring things back to a condition of peace in this manner. Ayala,
she had thought, might thus be decoyed into a state of submission.
Ayala, so instigated, had made her attempt. "What is the matter,
Augusta," she had said, "that you are determined to quarrel with me?"
Then had followed a little offer that bygones should be bygones.

"I have quarrelled with you," said Augusta, "because you do not know
how to behave yourself." Then Ayala had flashed forth, and the little
attempt led to a worse condition than ever, and words were spoken
which even Aunt Emmeline had felt to be irrevocable, irremediable.

"Only that you are going away I would not consent to live here," said
Ayala. Then Aunt Emmeline had asked her where she would go to live
should it please her to remove herself. Ayala had thought of this for
a moment, and then had burst into tears. "If I could not live I could
die. Anything would be better than to be treated as she treats me."
So the matters were when Tom came to Rome with all his jewelry.

Lady Tringle had already told herself that, in choosing Ayala, she
had chosen wrong. Lucy, though not so attractive as Ayala, was
pretty, quiet, and ladylike. So she thought now. And as to Ayala's
attractions, they were not at all of a nature to be serviceable to
such a family as hers. To have her own girls outshone, to be made
to feel that the poor orphan was the one person most worthy of note
among them, to be subjected to the caprices of a pretty, proud,
ill-conditioned minx;--thus it was that Aunt Emmeline was taught
to regard her own charity and good-nature towards her niece. There
was, she said, no gratitude in Ayala. Had she said that there was no
humility she would have been more nearly right. She was entitled, she
thought, to expect both gratitude and humility, and she was sorry
that she had opened the Paradise of her opulent home to one so little
grateful and so little humble as Ayala. She saw now her want of
judgment in that she had not taken Lucy.

Tom, who was not a fool, in spite of his trinkets, saw the state of
the case, and took Ayala's part at once. "I think you are quite
right," he said to her, on the first occasion on which he had
contrived to find himself alone with her after his arrival.

"Right about what?"

"In not giving up to Augusta. She was always like that when she was a
child, and now her head is turned about Traffick."

"I shouldn't grudge her her lover if she would only let me alone."

"I don't suppose she hurts you much?"

"She sets my aunt against me, and that makes me unhappy. Of course I
am wretched."

"Oh, Ayala, don't be wretched."

"How is one to help it? I never said an ill-natured word to her,
and now I am so lonely among them!" In saying this,--in seeking to
get one word of sympathy from her cousin, she forgot for a moment
his disagreeable pretensions. But, no sooner had she spoken of her
loneliness, than she saw that ogle in his eye of which she had spoken
with so much ludicrous awe in her letters from Glenbogie to her
sister.

"I shall always take your part," said he.

"I don't want any taking of parts."

"But I shall. I am not going to see you put upon. You are more to me,
Ayala, than any of them." Then he looked at her, whereupon she got up
and ran away.

But she could not always run away, nor could she always refuse when
he asked her to go with him about the show-places of the city. To
avoid starting alone with him was within her power; but she found
herself compelled to join herself to Gertrude and her brother in
some of those little excursions which were taken for her benefit. At
this time there had come to be a direct quarrel between Lady Tringle
and the Marchesa, which, however, had arisen altogether on the part
of Augusta. Augusta had forced her mother to declare that she was
insulted, and then there was no more visiting between them. This had
been sad enough for Ayala, who had struck up an intimacy with the
Marchesa's daughters. But the Marchesa had explained to her that
there was no help for it. "It won't do for you to separate yourself
from your aunt," she had said. "Of course we shall be friends, and
at some future time you shall come and see us." So there had been a
division, and Ayala would have been quite alone had she declined the
proffered companionship of Gertrude.

Within the walls and arches and upraised terraces of the Coliseum
they were joined one day by young Hamel, the sculptor, who had not,
as yet, gone back to London,--and had not, as yet, met Lucy in the
gardens at Kensington; and with him there had been one Frank Houston,
who had made acquaintance with Lady Tringle, and with the Tringles
generally, since they had been at Rome. Frank Houston was a young man
of family, with a taste for art, very good-looking, but not specially
well off in regard to income. He had heard of the good fortune of
Septimus Traffick in having prepared for himself a connection with so
wealthy a family as the Tringles, and had thought it possible that a
settlement in life might be comfortable for himself. What few soft
words he had hitherto been able to say to Gertrude had been taken
in good part, and when, therefore, they met among the walls of the
Coliseum, she had naturally straggled away to see some special wonder
which he had a special aptitude for showing. Hamel remained with
Ayala and Tom, talking of the old days at the bijou, till he found
himself obliged to leave them. Then Tom had his opportunity.

"Ayala," he said, "all this must be altered."

"What must be altered?"

"If you only knew, Ayala, how much you are to me."

"I wish you wouldn't, Tom. I don't want to be anything to anybody in
particular."

"What I mean is, that I won't have them sit upon you. They treat
you as--as,--well, as though you had only half a right to be one of
them."

"No more I have. I have no right at all."

"But that's not the way I want it to be. If you were my wife--"

"Tom, pray don't."

"Why not? I'm in earnest. Why ain't I to speak as I think? Oh, Ayala,
if you knew how much I think of you."

"But you shouldn't. You haven't got a right."

"I have got a right."

"But I don't want it, Tom, and I won't have it." He had carried her
away now to the end of the terrace, or ruined tier of seats, on which
they were walking, and had got her so hemmed into a corner that she
could not get away from him. She was afraid of him, lest he should
put out his hand to take hold of her,--lest something even more
might be attempted. And yet his manner was manly and sincere, and
had it not been for his pins and his chains she could not but have
acknowledged his goodness to her, much as she might have disliked his
person. "I want to get out," she said. "I won't stay here any more."
Mr. Traffick, on the top of St. Peter's, had been a much pleasanter
companion.

"Don't you believe me when I tell you that I love you better than
anybody?" pleaded Tom.

"No."

"Not believe me? Oh, Ayala!"

"I don't want to believe anything. I want to get out. If you go on,
I'll tell my aunt."

Tell her aunt! There was a want of personal consideration to himself
in this way of receiving his addresses which almost angered him. Tom
Tringle was not in the least afraid of his mother,--was not even
afraid of his father as long as he was fairly regular at the office
in Lombard Street. He was quite determined to please himself in
marriage, and was disposed to think that his father and mother would
like him to be settled. Money was no object. There was, to his
thinking, no good reason why he should not marry his cousin. For her
the match was so excellent that he hardly expected she would reject
him when she could be made to understand that he was really in
earnest. "You may tell all the world," he said proudly. "All I want
is that you should love me."

"But I don't. There are Gertrude and Mr. Houston, and I want to go to
them."

"Say one nice word to me, Ayala."

"I don't know how to say a nice word. Can't you be made to understand
that I don't like it?"

"Ayala."

"Why don't you let me go away?"

"Ayala,--give me--one--kiss." Then Ayala did go away, escaping by
some kid-like manoeuvre among the ruins, and running quickly, while
he followed her, joined herself to the other pair of lovers, who
probably were less in want of her society than she of theirs. "Ayala,
I am quite in earnest," said Tom, as they were walking home, "and I
mean to go on with it."

Ayala thought that there was nothing for it but to tell her aunt.
That there would be some absurdity in such a proceeding she did
feel,--that she would be acting as though her cousin were a naughty
boy who was merely teasing her. But she felt also the peculiar danger
of her own position. Her aunt must be made to understand that she,
Ayala, was innocent in the matter. It would be terrible to her to
be suspected even for a moment of a desire to inveigle the heir.
That Augusta would bring such an accusation against her she thought
probable. Augusta had said as much even at Glenbogie. She must
therefore be on the alert, and let it be understood at once
that she was not leagued with her cousin Tom. There would be an
absurdity;--but that would be better than suspicion.

She thought about it all that afternoon, and in the evening she came
to a resolution. She would write a letter to her cousin and persuade
him if possible to desist. If he should again annoy her after that
she would appeal to her aunt. Then she wrote and sent her letter,
which was as follows;--


   DEAR TOM,

   You don't know how unhappy you made me at the Coliseum
   to-day. I don't think you ought to turn against me when
   you know what I have to bear. It is turning against me
   to talk as you did. Of course it means nothing; but you
   shouldn't do it. It _never never_ could mean anything. I
   hope you will be good-natured and kind to me, and then I
   shall be so much obliged to you. If you won't say anything
   more like that I will forget it altogether.

   Your affectionate cousin,

   AYALA.


The letter ought to have convinced him. Those two underscored nevers
should have eradicated from his mind the feeling which had been
previously produced by the assertion that he had "meant nothing."
But he was so assured in his own meanings that he paid no attention
whatever to the nevers. The letter was a delight to him because it
gave him the opportunity of a rejoinder,--and he wrote his rejoinder
on a scented sheet of note-paper and copied it twice;--


   DEAREST AYALA,

   Why do you say that it means nothing? It means everything.
   No man was ever more in earnest in speaking to a lady than
   I am with you. Why should I not be in earnest when I am so
   deeply in love? From the first moment in which I saw you
   down at Glenbogie I knew how it was going to be with me.

   As for my mother I don't think she would say a word. Why
   should she? But I am not the sort of man to be talked out
   of my intentions in such a matter as this. I have set my
   heart upon having you and nothing will ever turn me off.

   Dearest Ayala, let me have one look to say that you will
   love me, and I shall be the happiest man in England. I
   think you so beautiful! I do, indeed. The governor has
   always said that if I would settle down and marry there
   should be lots of money. What could I do better with it
   than make my darling look as grand as the best of them.

   Yours, always meaning it,
   Most affectionately,

   T. TRINGLE.


It almost touched her,--not in the way of love but of gratitude. He
was still to her like Bottom with the ass's head, or the Newfoundland
dog gambolling out of the water. There was the heavy face, and there
were the big chains and the odious rings, and the great hands and
the clumsy feet,--making together a creature whom it was impossible
even to think of with love. She shuddered as she remembered the
proposition which had been made to her in the Coliseum.

And now by writing to him she had brought down upon herself this
absolute love-letter. She had thought that by appealing to him as
"Dear Tom," and by signing herself his affectionate cousin, she might
have prevailed. If he could only be made to understand that it could
never mean anything! But now, on the other hand, she had begun to
understand that it did _mean_ a great deal. He had sent to her a
regular offer of marriage! The magnitude of the thing struck her at
last. The heir of all the wealth of her mighty uncle wanted to make
her his wife!

But it was to her exactly as though the heir had come to her wearing
an ass's head on his shoulders. Love him! Marry him!--or even touch
him? Oh, no. They might ill-use her; they might scold her; they might
turn her out of the house; but no consideration would induce her to
think of Tom Tringle as a lover.

And yet he was in earnest, and honest, and good. And some
answer,--some further communication must be made to him. She
did recognise some nobility in him, though personally he was so
distasteful to her. Now his appeal to her had taken the guise of an
absolute offer of marriage he was entitled to a discreet and civil
answer. Romantic, dreamy, poetic, childish as she was, she knew as
much as that. "Go away, Tom, you fool, you," would no longer do for
the occasion. As she thought of it all that night it was borne in
upon her more strongly than ever that her only protection would be in
telling her aunt, and in getting her aunt to make Tom understand that
there must be no more of it. Early on the following morning she found
herself in her aunt's bedroom.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE LOUT.


"Aunt Emmeline, I want you to read this letter." So it was that Ayala
commenced the interview. At this moment Ayala was not on much better
terms with her aunt than she was with her cousin Augusta. Ayala was
a trouble to her,--Lady Tringle,--who was altogether perplexed with
the feeling that she had burdened herself with an inmate in her house
who was distasteful to her and of whom she could not rid herself.
Ayala had turned out on her hands something altogether different
from the girl she had intended to cherish and patronise. Ayala
was independent; superior rather than inferior to her own girls;
more thought of by others; apparently without any touch of that
subservience which should have been produced in her by her position.
Ayala seemed to demand as much as though she were a daughter of the
house, and at the same time to carry herself as though she were more
gifted than the daughters of the house. She was less obedient even
than a daughter. All this Aunt Emmeline could not endure with a
placid bosom. She was herself kind of heart. She acknowledged her
duty to her dead sister. She wished to protect and foster the orphan.
She did not even yet wish to punish Ayala by utter desertion. She
would protect her in opposition to Augusta's more declared malignity;
but she did wish to be rid of Ayala, if she only knew how.

She took her son's letter and read it, and as a matter of course
misunderstood the position. At Glenbogie something had been whispered
to her about Tom and Ayala, but she had not believed much in it.
Ayala was a child, and Tom was to her not much more than a boy. But
now here was a genuine love-letter,--a letter in which her son had
made a distinct proposition to marry the orphan. She did not stop to
consider why Ayala had brought the letter to her, but entertained at
once an idea that the two young people were going to vex her very
soul by a lamentable love affair. How imprudent she had been to let
the two young people be together in Rome, seeing that the matter had
been whispered to her at Glenbogie! "How long has this been going
on?" she asked, severely.

"He used to tease me at Glenbogie, and now he is doing it again,"
said Ayala.

"There must certainly be put an end to it. You must go away."

Ayala knew at once that her aunt was angry with her, and was
indignant at the injustice. "Of course there must be put an end to
it, Aunt Emmeline. He has no right to annoy me when I tell him not."

"I suppose you have encouraged him."

This was too cruel to be borne! Encouraged him! Ayala's anger was
caused not so much by a feeling that her aunt had misappreciated the
cause of her coming as that it should have been thought possible that
she should have "encouraged" such a lover. It was the outrage to her
taste rather than to her conduct which afflicted her. "He is a lout,"
she said; "a stupid lout!" thus casting her scorn upon the mother as
well as on the son, and, indeed, upon the whole family. "I have not
encouraged him. It is untrue."

"Ayala, you are very impertinent."

"And you are very unjust. Because I want to put a stop to it I come
to you, and you tell me that I encourage him. You are worse than
Augusta."

This was too much for the good nature even of Aunt Emmeline. Whatever
may have been the truth as to the love affair, however innocent Ayala
may have been in that matter, or however guilty Tom, such words
from a niece to her aunt,--from a dependent to her superior,--were
unpardonable. The extreme youthfulness of the girl, a peculiar look
of childhood which she still had with her, made the feeling so much
the stronger. "You are worse than Augusta!"

And this was said to her who was specially conscious of her
endeavours to mitigate Augusta's just anger. She bridled up, and
tried to look big and knit her brows. At that moment she could not
think what must be the end of it, but she felt that Ayala must be
crushed. "How dare you speak to me like that, 'Miss'?" she said.

"So you are. It is very cruel. Tom will go on saying all this
nonsense to me, and when I come to you you say I encourage him! I
never encouraged him. I despise him too much. I did not think my own
aunt could have told me that I encouraged any man. No, I didn't. You
drive me to it, so that I have got to be impertinent."

"You had better go to your room," said the aunt. Then Ayala, lifting
her head as high as she knew how, walked towards the door. "You had
better leave that letter with me." Ayala considered the matter for
a moment, and then handed the letter a second time to her aunt. It
could be nothing to her who saw the letter. She did not want it.
Having thus given it up she stalked off in silent disdain and went to
her chamber.

Aunt Emmeline, when she was left alone, felt herself to be enveloped
in a cloud of doubt. The desirableness of Tom as a husband first
forced itself upon her attention, and the undesirableness of Ayala as
a wife for Tom. She was perplexed at her own folly in not having seen
that danger of this kind would arise when she first proposed to take
Ayala into the house. Aunts and uncles do not like the marriage of
cousins, and the parents of rich children do not, as a rule, approve
of marriages with those which are poor. Although Ayala had been so
violent, Lady Tringle could not rid herself of the idea that her
darling boy was going to throw himself away. Then her cheeks became
red with anger as she remembered that her Tom had been called a
lout,--a stupid lout. There was an ingratitude in the use of such
language which was not alleviated even by the remembrance that it
tended against that matrimonial danger of which she was so much
afraid. Ayala was behaving very badly. She ought not to have coaxed
Tom to be her lover, and she certainly ought not to have called Tom a
lout. And then Ayala had told her aunt that she was unjust and worse
than Augusta! It was out of the question that such a state of things
should be endured. Ayala must be made to go away.

Before the day was over Lady Tringle spoke to her son, and was
astonished to find that the "lout" was quite in earnest,--so much
in earnest that he declared his purpose of marrying his cousin in
opposition to his father and mother, in opposition even to Ayala
herself. He was so much in earnest that he would not be roused to
wrath even when he was told that Ayala had called him a lout. And
then grew upon the mother a feeling that the young man had never been
so little loutish before. For there had been, even in her maternal
bosom, a feeling that Tom was open to the criticism expressed on him.
Tom had been a hobble-de-hoy, one of those overgrown lads who come
late to their manhood, and who are regarded by young ladies as louts.
Though he had spent his money only too freely when away, his sisters
had sometimes said that he could not say "bo to a goose" at home. But
now,--now Tom was quite an altered young man. When his own letter was
shown to him he simply said that he meant to stick to it. When it was
represented to him that his cousin would be quite an unfit wife for
him he assured his mother that his own opinion on that matter was
very different. When his father's anger was threatened he declared
that his father would have no right to be angry with him if he
married a lady. At the word "lout" he simply smiled. "She'll come to
think different from that before she's done with me," he said, with a
smile. Even the mother could not but perceive that the young man had
been much improved by his love.

But what was she to do? Two or three days went on, during which there
was no reconciliation between her and Ayala. Between Augusta and
Ayala no word was spoken. Messages were taken to her by Gertrude,
the object of which was to induce her to ask her aunt's pardon. But
Ayala was of opinion that her aunt ought to ask her pardon, and could
not be beaten from it. "Why did she say that I encouraged him?" she
demanded indignantly of Gertrude. "I don't think she did encourage
him," said Gertrude to her mother. This might possibly be true, but
not the less had she misbehaved. And though she might not yet have
encouraged her lover it was only too probable that she might do so
when she found that her lover was quite in earnest.

Lady Tringle was much harassed. And then there came an additional
trouble. Gertrude informed her mother that she had engaged herself
to Mr. Francis Houston, and that Mr. Houston was going to write to
her father with the object of proposing himself as a son-in-law. Mr.
Houston came also to herself, and told her, in the most natural tone
in the world, that he intended to marry her daughter. She had not
known what to say. It was Sir Thomas who managed all matters of
money. She had an idea that Mr. Houston was very poor. But then so
also had been Mr. Traffick, who had been received into the family
with open arms. But then Mr. Traffick had a career, whereas Mr.
Houston was lamentably idle. She could only refer Mr. Houston to Sir
Thomas, and beg him not to come among them any more till Sir Thomas
had decided. Upon this Gertrude also got angry, and shut herself up
in her room. The apartments Ruperti were, therefore, upon the whole,
an uncomfortable home to them.

Letters upon letters were written to Sir Thomas, and letters upon
letters came. The first letter had been about Ayala. He had been
much more tender towards Ayala than her aunt had been. He talked
of calf-love, and said that Tom was a fool; but he had not at once
thought it necessary to give imperative orders for Tom's return. As
to Ayala's impudence, he evidently regarded it as nothing. It was not
till Aunt Emmeline had spoken out in her third letter that he seemed
to recognise the possibility of getting rid of Ayala altogether. And
this he did in answer to a suggestion which had been made to him. "If
she likes to change with her sister Lucy, and you like it, I shall
not object," said Sir Thomas. Then there came an order to Tom that
he should return to Lombard Street at once; but this order had been
rendered abortive by the sudden return of the whole family. Sir
Thomas, in his first letter as to Gertrude, had declared that the
Houston marriage would not do at all. Then, when he was told that
Gertrude and Mr. Houston had certainly met each other more than once
since an order had been given for their separation, he desired the
whole family to come back at once to Merle Park.

The proposition as to Lucy had arisen in this wise. Tom being in the
same house with Ayala, of course had her very much at advantage, and
would carry on his suit in spite of any abuse which she might lavish
upon him. It was quite in vain that she called him lout. "You'll
think very different from that some of these days, Ayala," he said,
more seriously.

"No, I shan't; I shall think always the same."

"When you know how much I love you, you'll change."

"I don't want you to love me," she said; "and if you were anything
that is good you wouldn't go on after I have told you so often. It is
not manly of you. You have brought me to all manner of trouble. It is
your fault, but they make me suffer."

After that Ayala again went to her aunt, and on this occasion the
family misfortune was discussed in more seemly language. Ayala was
still indignant, but she said nothing insolent. Aunt Emmeline was
still averse to her niece, but she abstained from crimination. They
knew each as enemies, but recognised the wisdom of keeping the peace.
"As for that, Aunt Emmeline," Ayala said, "you may be quite sure that
I shall never encourage him. I shall never like him well enough."

"Very well. Then we need say no more about that, my dear. Of course,
it must be unpleasant to us all, being in the same house together."

"It is very unpleasant to me, when he will go on bothering me like
that. It makes me wish that I were anywhere else."

Then Aunt Emmeline began to think about it very seriously. It was
very unpleasant. Ayala had made herself disagreeable to all the
ladies of the family, and only too agreeable to the young gentleman.
Nor did the manifest favour of Sir Thomas do much towards raising
Ayala in Lady Tringle's estimation. Sir Thomas had only laughed when
Augusta had been requested to go upstairs for the scrap-book. Sir
Thomas had been profuse with his presents even when Ayala had been
most persistent in her misbehaviour. And then all that affair of the
Marchesa, and even Mr. Traffick's infatuation! If Ayala wished that
she were somewhere else would it not be well to indulge her wish!
Aunt Emmeline certainly wished it. "If you think so, perhaps some
arrangement can be made," said Aunt Emmeline, very slowly.

"What arrangement?"

"You must not suppose that I wish to turn you out?"

"But what arrangement?"

"You see, Ayala, that unfortunately we have not all of us hit it off
nicely; have we?"

"Not at all, Aunt Emmeline. Augusta is always angry with me. And
you,--you think that I have encouraged Tom."

"I am saying nothing about that, Ayala."

"But what arrangement is it, Aunt Emmeline?" The matter was one of
fearful import to Ayala. She was prudent enough to understand that
well. The arrangement must be one by which she would be banished from
all the wealth of the Tringles. Her coming among them had not been a
success. She had already made them tired of her by her petulance and
independence. Young as she was she could see that, and comprehend the
material injury she had done herself by her folly. She had been very
wrong in telling Augusta to go upstairs. She had been wrong in the
triumph of her exclusive visits to the Marchesa. She had been wrong
in walking away with Mr. Traffick on the Pincian. She could see that.
She had not been wrong in regard to Tom,--except in calling him a
lout; but whether wrong or right she had been most unfortunate. But
the thing had been done, and she must go.

At this moment the wealth of the Tringles seemed to be more to her
than it had ever been before,--and her own poverty and destitution
seemed to be more absolute. When the word "arrangement" was whispered
to her there came upon her a clear idea of all that which she was
to lose. She was to be banished from Merle Park, from Queen's Gate,
and from Glenbogie. For her there were to be no more carriages, and
horses, and pretty trinkets;--none of that abandon of the luxury
of money among which the Tringles lived. But she had done it for
herself, and she would not say a word in opposition to the fate which
was before her. "What arrangement, aunt?" she said again, in a voice
which was intended to welcome any arrangement that might be made.

Then her aunt spoke very softly. "Of course, dear Ayala, we do not
wish to do less than we at first intended. But as you are not happy
here--" Then she paused, almost ashamed of herself.

"I am not happy here," said Ayala, boldly.

"How would it be if you were to change,--with Lucy?"

The idea which had been present to Lady Tringle for some weeks past
had never struck Ayala. The moment she heard it she felt that she
was more than ever bound to assent. If the home from which she was
to be banished was good, then would that good fall upon Lucy. Lucy
would have the carriages and the horses and the trinkets, Lucy, who
certainly was not happy at Kingsbury Crescent. "I should be very
glad, indeed," said Ayala.

Her voice was so brave and decided that, in itself, it gave fresh
offence to her aunt. Was there to be no regret after so much
generosity? But she misunderstood the girl altogether. As the words
were coming from her lips,--"I should be very glad, indeed,"--Ayala's
heart was sinking with tenderness as she remembered how much after
all had been done for her. But as they wished her to go there should
be not a word, not a sign of unwillingness on her part.

"Then perhaps it can be arranged," said Lady Tringle.

"I don't know what Uncle Dosett may say. Perhaps they are very fond
of Lucy now."

"They wouldn't wish to stand in her way, I should think."

"At any rate, I won't. If you, and my uncles, and Aunt Margaret, will
consent, I will go whenever you choose. Of course I must do just as
I'm told."

Aunt Emmeline made a faint demur to this; but still the matter was
held to be arranged. Letters were written to Sir Thomas, and letters
came, and at last even Sir Thomas had assented. He suggested, in
the first place, that all the facts which would follow the exchange
should be explained to Ayala; but he was obliged after a while to
acknowledge that this would be inexpedient. The girl was willing; and
knew no doubt that she was to give up the great wealth of her present
home. But she had proved herself to be an unfit participator, and it
was better that she should go.

Then the departure of them all from Rome was hurried on by the
indiscretion of Gertrude. Gertrude declared that she had a right to
her lover. As to his having no income, what matter for that. Everyone
knew that Septimus Traffick had no income. Papa had income enough for
them all. Mr. Houston was a gentleman. Till this moment no one had
known of how strong a will of her own Gertrude was possessed. When
Gertrude declared that she would not consent to be separated from Mr.
Houston then they were all hurried home.




CHAPTER IX.

THE EXCHANGE.


Such was the state of things when Mr. Dosett brought the three
letters home with him to Kingsbury Crescent, having been so much
disturbed by the contents of the two which were addressed to himself
as to have found himself compelled to leave his office two hours
before the proper time. The three letters were handed together by her
uncle to Lucy, and she, seeing the importance of the occasion, read
the two open ones before she broke the envelope of her own. That from
Sir Thomas came first, and was as follows;--


   Lombard Street, January, 187--.

   MY DEAR DOSETT,

   I have had a correspondence with the ladies at Rome which
   has been painful in its nature, but which I had better
   perhaps communicate to you at once. Ayala has not got on
   as well with Lady Tringle and the girls as might have been
   wished, and they all think it will be better that she and
   Lucy should change places. I chiefly write to give my
   assent. Your sister will no doubt write to you. I may as
   well mention to you, should you consent to take charge of
   Ayala, that I have made some provision for her in my will,
   and that I shall not change it. I have to add on my own
   account that I have no complaint of my own to make against
   Ayala.

   Yours sincerely,

   T. TRINGLE.


Lucy, when she had read this, proceeded at once to the letter from
her aunt. The matter to her was one of terrible importance, but the
importance was quite as great to Ayala. She had been allowed to go
up alone into her own room. The letters were of such a nature that
she could hardly have read them calmly in the presence of her Aunt
Dosett. It was thus that her Aunt Emmeline had written;--


   Palazzo Ruperti, Rome, Thursday.

   MY DEAR REGINALD,

   I am sure you will be sorry to hear that we are in great
   trouble here. This has become so bad that we are obliged
   to apply to you to help us. Now you must understand that
   I do not mean to say a word against dear Ayala;--only she
   does not suit. It will occur sometimes that people who
   are most attached to each other do not suit. So it has
   been with dear Ayala. She is not happy with us. She has
   not perhaps accommodated herself to her cousins quite as
   carefully as she might have done. She is fully as sensible
   of this as I am, and is, herself, persuaded that there had
   better be a change.

   Now, my dear Reginald, I am quite aware that when poor
   Egbert died it was I who chose Ayala, and that you took
   Lucy partly in compliance with my wishes. Now I write to
   suggest that there should be a change. I am sure you will
   give me credit for a desire to do the best I can for both
   the poor dear girls. I did think that this might be best
   done by letting Ayala come to us. I now think that Lucy
   would do better with her cousins, and that Ayala would be
   more attractive without the young people around her.

   When I see you I will tell you everything. There has been
   no great fault. She has spoken a word or two to me which
   had been better unsaid, but I am well convinced that it
   has come from hot temper and not from a bad heart. Perhaps
   I had better tell you the truth. Tom has admired her. She
   has behaved very well; but she could not bear to be spoken
   to, and so there have been unpleasantnesses. And the girls
   certainly have not got on well together. Sir Thomas quite
   agrees with me that if you will consent there had better
   be a change.

   I will not write to dear Lucy herself because you and
   Margaret can explain it all so much better,--if you will
   consent to our plan. Ayala also will write to her sister.
   But pray tell her from me that I will love her very dearly
   if she will come to me. And indeed I have loved Ayala
   almost as though she were my own, only we have not been
   quite able to hit it off together.

   Of course neither has Sir Thomas or have I any idea of
   escaping from a responsibility. I should be quite unhappy
   if I did not have one of poor dear Egbert's girls with me.
   Only I do think that Lucy would be the best for us; and
   Ayala thinks so too. I should be quite unhappy if I were
   doing this in opposition to Ayala.

   We shall be in England almost as soon as this letter, and
   I should be so glad if this could be decided at once. If
   a thing like this is to be done it is so much better for
   all parties that it should be done quickly. Pray give my
   best love to Margaret, and tell her that Ayala shall bring
   everything with her that she wants.

   Your most affectionate sister,

   EMMELINE TRINGLE.


The letter, though it was much longer than her uncle's, going into
details, such as that of Tom's unfortunate passion for his cousin,
had less effect upon Lucy, as it did not speak with so much authority
as that from Sir Thomas. What Sir Thomas said would surely be done;
whereas Aunt Emmeline was only a woman, and her letter, unsupported,
might not have carried conviction. But, if Sir Thomas wished it,
surely it must be done. Then, at last, came Ayala's letter;--


   Rome, Thursday.

   DEAREST, DEAREST LUCY,

   Oh, I have such things to write to you! Aunt Emmeline has
   told it all to Uncle Reginald. You are to come and be the
   princess, and I am to go and be the milkmaid at home. I am
   quite content that it should be so because I know that it
   will be the best. You ought to be a princess and I ought
   to be a milkmaid.

   It has been coming almost ever since the first day that I
   came among them,--since I told Augusta to go upstairs for
   the scrap-book. I felt from the very moment in which the
   words were uttered that I had gone and done for myself.
   But I am not a bit sorry, as you will come in my place.
   Augusta will very soon be gone now, and Aunt Emmeline
   is not bad at all if you will only not contradict her.
   I always contradicted her, and I know that I have been a
   fool. But I am not a bit sorry, as you are to come instead
   of me.

   But it is not only about Augusta and Aunt Emmeline. There
   has been that oaf Tom. Poor Tom! I do believe that he is
   the most good-natured fellow alive. And if he had not so
   many chains I should not dislike him so very much. But he
   will go on saying horrible things to me. And then he wrote
   me a letter! Oh dear! I took the letter to Aunt Emmeline,
   and that made the quarrel. She said that I had--encouraged
   him! Oh, Lucy, if you will think of that! I was so angry
   that I said ever so much to her,--till she sent me out of
   the room. She had no business to say that I encouraged
   him. It was shameful! But she has never forgiven me,
   because I scolded her. So they have decided among them
   that I am to be sent away, and that you are to come in my
   place.

   My own darling Lucy, it will be ever so much better. I
   know that you are not happy in Kingsbury Crescent, and
   that I shall bear it very much better. I can sit still and
   mend sheets.


Poor Ayala, how little she knew herself!


   And you will make a beautiful grand lady, quiescent and
   dignified as a grand lady ought to be. At any rate it
   would be impossible that I should remain here. Tom is bad
   enough, but to be told that I encourage him is more than I
   can bear.

   I shall see you very soon, but I cannot help writing and
   telling it to you all. Give my love to Aunt Dosett. If she
   will consent to receive me I will endeavour to be good to
   her. In the meantime good-bye.

   Your most affectionate sister,

   AYALA.


When Lucy had completed the reading of the letters she sat for a
considerable time wrapped in thought. There was, in truth, very much
that required thinking. It was proposed that the whole tenour of
her life should be changed, and changed in a direction which would
certainly suit her taste. She had acknowledged to herself that she
had hated the comparative poverty of her Uncle Dosett's life, hating
herself in that she was compelled to make such acknowledgment. But
there had been more than the poverty which had been distasteful to
her,--a something which she had been able to tell herself that she
might be justified in hating without shame. There had been to her an
absence of intellectual charm in the habits and manners of Kingsbury
Crescent which she had regarded as unfortunate and depressing. There
had been no thought of art delights. No one read poetry. No one heard
music. No one looked at pictures. A sheet to be darned was the one
thing of greatest importance. The due development of a leg of mutton,
the stretching of a pound of butter, the best way of repressing the
washerwoman's bills,--these had been the matters of interest. And
they had not been made the less irritating to her by her aunt's
extreme goodness in the matter. The leg of mutton was to be developed
in the absence of her uncle,--if possible without his knowledge. He
was to have his run of clean linen. Lucy did not grudge him anything,
but was sickened by that partnership in economy which was established
between her and her aunt. Undoubtedly from time to time she had
thought of the luxuries which had been thrown in Ayala's way. There
had been a regret,--not that Ayala should have them but that she
should have missed them. Money she declared that she despised;--but
the easy luxury of the bijou was sweet to her memory.

Now it was suggested to her suddenly that she was to exchange the
poverty for the luxury, and to return to a mode of life in which
her mind might be devoted to things of beauty. The very scenery of
Glenbogie,--what a charm it would have for her! Judging from her
uncle's manner, as well as she could during that moment in which he
handed to her the letter, she imagined that he intended to make no
great objection. Her aunt disliked her. She was sure that her aunt
disliked her in spite of the partnership. Only that there was one
other view of the case--how happy might the transfer be. Her uncle
was always gentle to her, but there could hardly as yet have grown up
any strong affection for her. To him she was grateful, but she could
not tell herself that to part from him would be a pang. There was,
however, another view of the case.

Ayala! How would it be with Ayala! Would Ayala like the partnership
and the economies? Would Ayala be cheerful as she sat opposite to
her aunt for four hours at a time! Ayala had said that she could sit
still and mend sheets, but was it not manifest enough that Ayala knew
nothing of the life of which she was speaking. And would she, Lucy,
be able to enjoy the glories of Glenbogie while she thought that
Ayala was eating out her heart in the sad companionship of Kingsbury
Crescent? For above an hour she sat and thought; but of one aspect
which the affair bore she did not think. She did not reflect that she
and Ayala were in the hands of Fate, and that they must both do as
their elders should require of them.

At last there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered. She
would sooner that it should have been her uncle: but there was no
choice but that the matter should be now discussed with the woman
whom she did not love,--this matter that was so dreadful to herself
in all its bearings, and so dreadful to one for whom she would
willingly sacrifice herself if it were possible! She did not know
what she could say to create sympathy with Aunt Dosett. "Lucy," said
Aunt Dosett, "this is a very serious proposal."

"Very serious," said Lucy, sternly.

"I have not read the letters, but your uncle has told me about it."
Then Lucy handed her the two letters, keeping that from Ayala to
herself, and she sat perfectly still while her aunt read them both
slowly. "Your Aunt Emmeline is certainly in earnest," said Mrs.
Dosett.

"Aunt Emmeline is very good-natured, and perhaps she will change her
mind if we tell her that we wish it."

"But Sir Thomas has agreed to it."

"I am sure my uncle will give way if Aunt Emmeline will ask him.
He says he has no complaint to make against Ayala. I think it is
Augusta, and Augusta will be married, and will go away very soon."

Then there came a change, a visible change, over the countenance of
Aunt Dosett, and a softening of the voice,--so that she looked and
spoke as Lucy had not seen or heard her before. There are people
apparently so hard, so ungenial, so unsympathetic, that they who only
half know them expect no trait of tenderness, think that features
so little alluring cannot be compatible with softness. Lucy had
acknowledged her Aunt Dosett to be good, but believed her to be
incapable of being touched. But a word or two had now conquered
her. The girl did not want to leave her,--did not seize the first
opportunity of running from her poverty to the splendour of the
Tringles! "But, Lucy," she said, and came and placed herself nearer
to Lucy on the bed.

"Ayala--," said Lucy, sobbing.

"I will be kind to her,--perhaps kinder than I have been to you."

"You have been kind, and I have been ungrateful. I know it. But I
will do better now, Aunt Dosett. I will stay, if you will have me."

"They are rich and powerful, and you will have to do as they direct."

"No! Who are they that I should be made to come and go at their
bidding? They cannot make me leave you."

"But they can rid themselves of Ayala. You see what your uncle says
about money for Ayala."

"I hate money."

"Money is a thing which none of us can afford to hate. Do you think
it will not be much to your Uncle Reginald to know that you are both
provided for? Already he is wretched because there will be nothing to
come to you. If you go to your Aunt Emmeline, Sir Thomas will do for
you as he has done for Ayala. Dear Lucy, it is not that I want to
send you away." Then for the first time Lucy put her arm round her
aunt's neck. "But it had better be as is proposed, if your aunt still
wishes it, when she comes home. I and your Uncle Reginald would not
do right were we to allow you to throw away the prospects that are
offered you. It is natural that Lady Tringle should be anxious about
her son."

"She need not, in the least," said Lucy, indignantly.

"But you see what they say."

"It is his fault, not hers. Why should she be punished?"

"Because he is Fortune's favourite, and she is not. It is no good
kicking against the pricks, my dear. He is his father's son and heir,
and everything must give way to him."

"But Ayala does not want him. Ayala despises him. It is too hard that
she is to lose everything because a young man like that will go on
making himself disagreeable. They have no right to do it after having
accustomed Ayala to such a home. Don't you feel that, Aunt Dosett?"

"I do feel it."

"However it might have been arranged at first, it ought to remain
now. Even though Ayala and I are only girls, we ought not to be
changed about as though we were horses. If she had done anything
wrong,--but Uncle Tom says that she has done nothing wrong."

"I suppose she has spoken to her aunt disrespectfully."

"Because her aunt told her that she had encouraged this man. What
would you have a girl say when she is falsely accused like that?
Would you say it to me merely because some horrid man would come and
speak to me?" Then there came a slight pang of conscience as she
remembered Isadore Hamel in Kensington Gardens. If the men were not
thought to be horrid, then perhaps the speaking might be a sin worthy
of most severe accusation.

There was nothing more said about it that night, nor till the
following afternoon, when Mr. Dosett returned home at the usual
hour from his office. Then Lucy was closeted with him for a
quarter-of-an-hour in the drawing-room. He had been into the City and
seen Sir Thomas. Sir Thomas had been of opinion that it would be much
better that Lady Tringle's wishes should be obeyed. It was quite true
that he himself had no complaint to make against Ayala, but he did
think that Ayala had been pert; and, though it might be true that
Ayala had not encouraged Tom, there was no knowing what might grow
out of such a propensity on Tom's part. And then it could not be
pleasant to Lady Tringle or to himself that their son should be
banished out of their house. When something was hinted as to the
injustice of this, Sir Thomas endeavoured to put all that right by
declaring that, if Lady Tringle's wishes could be attended to in
this matter, provision would be made for the two girls. He certainly
would not strike Ayala's name out of his will, and as certainly would
not take Lucy under his wing as his own child without making some
provision for her. Looking at the matter in this light he did not
think that Mr. Dosett would be justified in robbing Lucy of the
advantages which were offered to her. With this view Mr. Dosett found
himself compelled to agree, and with these arguments he declared to
Lucy that it was her duty to submit herself to the proposed exchange.

Early in February all the Tringle family were in Queen's Gate, and
Lucy on her first visit to the house found that everyone, including
Ayala, looked upon the thing as settled. Ayala, who under these
circumstances was living on affectionate terms with all the Tringles,
except Tom, was quite radiant. "I suppose I had better go to-morrow,
aunt?" she said, as though it were a matter of most trivial
consequence.

"In a day or two, Ayala, it will be better."

"It shall be Monday, then. You must come over here in a cab, Lucy."

"The carriage shall be sent, my dear."

"But then it must go back with me, Aunt Emmeline."

"It shall, my dear."

"And the horses must be put up, because Lucy and I must change all
our things in the drawers." Lucy at the time was sitting in the
drawing-room, and Augusta, with most affectionate confidence, was
singing to her all the praises of Mr. Traffick. In this way it was
settled, and the change, so greatly affecting the fortunes of our two
sisters, was arranged.




CHAPTER X.

AYALA AND HER AUNT MARGARET.


Till the last moment for going Ayala seemed to be childish,
triumphant, and indifferent. But, till that last moment, she was
never alone with Lucy. It was the presence of her aunt and cousins
which sustained her in her hardihood. Tom was never there,--or
so rarely as not to affect her greatly. In London he had his own
lodgings, and was not encouraged to appear frequently till Ayala
should have gone. But Aunt Emmeline and Gertrude were perseveringly
gracious, and even Augusta had somewhat relaxed from her wrath. With
them Ayala was always good-humoured, but always brave. She affected
to rejoice at the change which was to be made. She spoke of Lucy's
coming and of her own going as an unmixed blessing. This she did so
effectually as to make Aunt Emmeline declare to Sir Thomas, with
tears in her eyes, that the girl was heartless. But when, at the
moment of parting, the two girls were together, then Ayala broke
down.

They were in the room, together, which one had occupied and the other
was to occupy, and their boxes were still upon the floor. Though less
than six months had passed since Ayala had come among the rich things
and Lucy had been among the poor, Ayala's belongings had become
much more important than her sister's. Though the Tringles had been
unpleasant they had been generous. Lucy was sitting upon the bed,
while Ayala was now moving about the room restlessly, now clinging
to her sister, and now sobbing almost in despair. "Of course I know,"
she said. "What is the use of telling stories about it any longer?"

"It is not too late yet, Ayala. If we both go to Uncle Tom he will
let us change it."

"Why should it be changed? If I could change it by lifting up my
little finger I could not do it. Why should it not be you as well
as me? They have tried me, and,--as Aunt Emmeline says,--I have not
suited."

"Aunt Dosett is not ill-natured, my darling."

"No, I dare say not. It is I that am bad. It is bad to like pretty
things and money, and to hate poor things. Or, rather, I do not
believe it is bad at all, because it is so natural. I believe it is
all a lie as to its being wicked to love riches. I love them, whether
it is wicked or not."

"Oh, Ayala!"

"Do not you? Don't let us be hypocritical, Lucy, now at the last
moment. Did you like the way in which they lived in Kingsbury
Crescent?"

Lucy paused before she answered. "I like it better than I did," she
said. "At any rate, I would willingly go back to Kingsbury Crescent."

"Yes,--for my sake."

"Indeed I would, my pet."

"And for your sake I would rather die than stay. But what is the good
of talking about it, Lucy. You and I have no voice in it, though
it is all about ourselves. As you say, we are like two tame birds,
who have to be moved from one cage into another just as the owner
pleases. We belong either to Uncle Tom or Uncle Dosett, just as they
like to settle it. Oh, Lucy, I do so wish that I were dead."

"Ayala, that is wicked."

"How can I help it, if I am wicked? What am I to do when I get there?
What am I to say to them? How am I to live? Lucy, we shall never see
each other."

"I will come across to you constantly."

"I meant to do so, but I didn't. They are two worlds, miles asunder.
Lucy, will they let Isadore Hamel come here?" Lucy blushed and
hesitated. "I am sure he will come."

Lucy remembered that she had given her friend her address at Queen's
Gate, and felt that she would seem to have done it as though she
had known that she was about to be transferred to the other uncle's
house. "It will make no difference if he does," she said.

"Oh, I have such a dream,--such a castle-in-the-air! If I could think
it might ever be so, then I should not want to die."

"What do you dream?" But Lucy, though she asked the question, knew
the dream.

"If you had a little house of your own, oh, ever so tiny; and if you
and he--?"

"There is no he."

"There might be. And, if you and he would let me have any corner for
myself, then I should be happy. Then I would not want to die. You
would, wouldn't you?"

"How can I talk about it, Ayala? There isn't such a thing. But
yet,--but yet; oh, Ayala, do you not know that to have you with me
would be better than anything?"

"No;--not better than anything;--second best. He would be best. I do
so hope that he may be 'he.' Come in." There was a knock at the door,
and Aunt Emmeline, herself, entered the room.

"Now, my dears, the horses are standing there, and the men are coming
up for the luggage. Ayala, I hope we shall see you very often. And
remember that, as regards anything that is unpleasant, bygones shall
be bygones." Then there was a crowd of farewell kisses, and in a few
minutes Ayala was alone in the carriage on her road up to Kingsbury
Crescent.

The thing had been done so quickly that hitherto there had hardly
been time for tears. To Ayala herself the most remarkable matter in
the whole affair had been Tom's persistence. He had, at last, been
allowed to bring them home from Rome, there having been no other
gentleman whose services were available for the occasion. He had been
watched on the journey very closely, and had had no slant in his
favour, as the young lady to whom he was devoted was quite as anxious
to keep out of his way as had been the others of the party to
separate them. But he had made occasion, more than once, sufficient
to express his intention. "I don't mean to give you up, you know," he
had said to her. "When I say a thing I mean it. I am not going to be
put off by my mother. And as for the governor he would not say a word
against it if he thought we were both in earnest."

"But I ain't in earnest," said Ayala; "or rather, I am very much in
earnest."

"So am I. That's all I've got to say just at present." From this
there grew up within her mind a certain respect for the "lout,"
which, however, made him more disagreeable to her than he might have
been had he been less persistent.

It was late in the afternoon, not much before dinner, when Ayala
reached the house in Kingsbury Crescent. Hitherto she had known
almost nothing of her Aunt Dosett, and had never been intimate even
with her uncle. They, of course, had heard much of her, and had been
led to suppose that she was much less tractable than the simple Lucy.
This feeling had been so strong that Mr. Dosett himself would hardly
have been led to sanction the change had it not been for that promise
from Sir Thomas that he would not withdraw the provision he had made
for Ayala, and would do as much for Lucy if Lucy should become an
inmate of his family. Mrs. Dosett had certainly been glad to welcome
any change, when a change was proposed to her. There had grown up
something of affection at the last moment, but up to that time she
had certainly disliked her niece. Lucy had appeared to her to be at
first idle and then sullen. The girl had seemed to affect a higher
nature than her own, and had been wilfully indifferent to the little
things which had given to her life whatever interest it possessed.
Lucy's silence had been a reproach to her, though she herself had
been able to do so little to abolish the silence. Perhaps Ayala might
be better.

But they were both afraid of Ayala,--as they had not been afraid of
Lucy before her arrival. They made more of preparation for her in
their own minds, and, as to their own conduct, Mr. Dosett was there
himself to receive her, and was conscious in doing so that there had
been something of failure in their intercourse with Lucy. Lucy had
been allowed to come in without preparation, with an expectation that
she would fall easily into her place, and there had been failure.
There had been no regular consultation as to this new coming, but
both Mr. and Mrs. Dosett were conscious of an intended effort.

Lady Tringle and Mr. Dosett had always been Aunt Emmeline and
Uncle Reginald, by reason of the nearness of their relationship.
Circumstances of closer intercourse had caused Sir Thomas to be Uncle
Tom. But Mrs. Dosett had never become more than Aunt Dosett to either
of the girls. This in itself had been matter almost of soreness to
her, and she had intended to ask Lucy to adopt the more endearing
form of her Christian name; but there had been so little endearment
between them that the moment for doing so had never come. She was
thinking of all this up in her own room, preparatory to the reception
of this other girl, while Mr. Dosett was bidding her welcome to
Kingsbury Crescent in the drawing-room below.

Ayala had been dissolved in tears during the drive round by
Kensington to Bayswater, and was hardly able to repress her sobs as
she entered the house. "My dear," said the uncle, "we will do all
that we can to make you happy here."

"I am sure you will; but--but--it is so sad coming away from Lucy."

"Lucy I am sure will be happy with her cousins." If Lucy's happiness
were made to depend on her cousins, thought Ayala, it would not be
well assured. "And my sister Emmeline is always good-natured."

"Aunt Emmeline is very good, only--"

"Only what?"

"I don't know. But it is such a sudden change, Uncle Reginald."

"Yes, it is a very great change, my dear. They are very rich and we
are poor enough. I should hardly have consented to this, for your
sake, but that there are reasons which will make it better for you
both."

"As to that," said Ayala, stoutly, "I had to come away. I didn't
suit."

"You shall suit us, my dear."

"I hope so. I will try. I know more now than I did then. I thought I
was to be Augusta's equal."

"We shall all be equal here."

"People ought to be equal, I think,--except old people and young
people. I will do whatever you and my aunt tell me. There are no
young people here, so there won't be any trouble of that kind."

"There will be no other young person, certainly. You shall go
upstairs now and see your aunt."

Then there was the interview upstairs, which consisted chiefly in
promises and kisses, and Ayala was left alone to unpack her boxes and
prepare for dinner. Before she began her operations she sat still for
a few moments, and with an effort collected her energies and made her
resolution. She had said to Lucy in her passion that she would that
she were dead. That that should have been wicked was not matter of
much concern to her. But she acknowledged to herself that it had been
weak and foolish. There was her life before her, and she would still
endeavour to be happy though there had been so much to distress her.
She had flung away wealth. She was determined to fling it away still
when it should present itself to her in the shape of her cousin Tom.
But she had her dreams,--her day-dreams,--those castles in the air
which it had been the delight of her life to construct, and in the
building of which her hours had never run heavy with her. Isadore
Hamel would, of course, come again, and would, of course, marry Lucy,
and then there would be a home for her after her own heart. With
Isadore as her brother, and her own own Lucy close to her, she would
not feel the want of riches and of luxury. If there were only some
intellectual charm in her life, some touch of art, some devotion
to things beautiful, then she could do without gold and silver and
costly raiment. Of course, Isadore would come; and then--then--in the
far distance, something else would come, something of which in her
castle-building she had not yet developed the form, of which she did
not yet know the bearing, or the manner of its beauty, or the music
of its voice; but as to which she was very sure that its form would
be beautiful and its voice full of music. It can hardly be said that
this something was the centre of her dreams, or the foundation of
her castles. It was the extreme point of perfection at which she
would arrive at last, when her thoughts had become sublimated by the
intensity of her thinking. It was the tower of the castle from which
she could look down upon the inferior world below,--the last point
of the dream in arranging which she would all but escape from earth
to heaven,--when in the moment of her escape the cruel waking back
into the world would come upon her. But this she knew,--that this
something, whatever might be its form or whatever its voice, would be
exactly the opposite of Tom Tringle.

She had fallen away from her resolution to her dreams for a time,
when suddenly she jumped up and began her work with immense energy.
Open went one box after another, and in five minutes the room was
strewed with her possessions. The modest set of drawers which was to
supply all her wants was filled with immediate haste. Things were
deposited in whatever nooks might be found, and every corner was
utilized. Her character for tidiness had never stood high. At the
bijou Lucy, or her mother, or the favourite maid, had always been at
hand to make good her deficiencies with a reproach which had never
gone beyond a smile or a kiss. At Glenbogie and even on the journey
there had been attendant lady's maids. But here she was all alone.

Everything was still in confusion when she was called to dinner. As
she went down she recalled to herself her second resolution. She
would be good;--whereby she intimated to herself that she would
endeavour to do what might be pleasing to her Aunt Dosett. She had
little doubt as to her uncle. But she was aware that there had been
differences between her aunt and Lucy. If Lucy had found it difficult
to be good how great would be the struggle required from her!

She sat herself down at table a little nearer to her aunt than her
uncle, because it was specially her aunt whom she wished to win, and
after a few minutes she put out her little soft hand and touched
that of Mrs. Dosett. "My dear," said that lady. "I hope you will be
happy."

"I am determined to be happy," said Ayala, "if you will let me love
you."

Mrs. Dosett was not beautiful, nor was she romantic. In appearance
she was the very reverse of Ayala. The cares of the world, the
looking after shillings and their results, had given her that look of
commonplace insignificance which is so frequent and so unattractive
among middle-aged women upon whom the world leans heavily. But there
was a tender corner in her heart which was still green, and from
which a little rill of sweet water could be made to flow when it
was touched aright. On this occasion a tear came to her eye as
she pressed her niece's hand; but she said nothing. She was sure,
however, that she would love Ayala much better than she had been able
to love Lucy.

"What would you like me to do?" asked Ayala, when her aunt
accompanied her that night to her bed room.

"To do, my dear? What do you generally do?"

"Nothing. I read a little and draw a little, but I do nothing useful.
I mean it to be different now."

"You shall do as you please, Ayala."

"Oh, but I mean it. And you must tell me. Of course things have to be
different."

"We are not rich like your uncle and aunt Tringle."

"Perhaps it is better not to be rich, so that one may have something
to do. But I want you to tell me as though you really cared for me."

"I will care for you," said Aunt Dosett, sobbing.

"Then first begin by telling me what to do. I will try and do it. Of
course I have thought about it, coming away from all manner of rich
things; and I have determined that it shall not make me unhappy. I
will rise above it. I will begin to-morrow and do anything if you
will tell me." Then Aunt Dosett took her in her arms and kissed her,
and declared that on the morrow they would begin their work together
in perfect confidence and love with each other.

"I think she will do better than Lucy," said Mrs. Dosett to her
husband that night.

"Lucy was a dear girl too," said Uncle Reginald.

"Oh, yes;--quite so. I don't mean to say a word against Lucy; but I
think that I can do better with Ayala. She will be more diligent."
Uncle Reginald said nothing to this, but he could not but think that
of the two Lucy would be the one most likely to devote herself to
hard work.

On the next morning Ayala went out with her aunt on the round to the
shopkeepers, and listened with profound attention to the domestic
instructions which were given to her on the occasion. When she came
home she knew much of which she had known nothing before. What was
the price of mutton, and how much mutton she was expected as one of
the family to eat per week; what were the necessities of the house in
bread and butter, how far a pint of milk might be stretched,--with a
proper understanding that her Uncle Reginald as head of the family
was to be subjected to no limits. And before their return from that
walk,--on the first morning of Ayala's sojourn,--Ayala had undertaken
always to call Mrs. Dosett Aunt Margaret for the future.




CHAPTER XI.

TOM TRINGLE COMES TO THE CRESCENT.


During the next three months, up to the end of the winter and through
the early spring, things went on without any change either in Queen's
Gate or Kingsbury Crescent. The sisters saw each other occasionally,
but not as frequently as either of them had intended. Lucy was not
encouraged in the use of cabs, nor was the carriage lent to her often
for the purpose of going to the Crescent. The reader may remember
that she had been in the habit of walking alone in Kensington
Gardens, and a walk across Kensington Gardens would carry her the
greater part of the distance to Kingsbury Crescent. But Lucy, in
her new circumstances, was not advised,--perhaps, I may say, was
not allowed,--to walk alone. Lady Tringle, being a lady of rank and
wealth, was afraid, or pretended to be afraid, of the lions. Poor
Ayala was really afraid of the lions. Thus it came to pass that the
intercourse was not frequent. In her daily life Lucy was quiet and
obedient. She did not run counter to Augusta, whose approaching
nuptials gave her that predominance in the house which is always
accorded to young ladies in her recognised position. Gertrude was at
this time a subject of trouble at Queen's Gate. Sir Thomas had not
been got to approve of Mr. Frank Houston, and Gertrude had positively
refused to give him up. Sir Thomas was, indeed, considerably troubled
by his children. There had been a period of disagreeable obstinacy
even with Augusta before Mr. Traffick had been taken into the bosom
of the family. Now Gertrude had her own ideas, and so also had
Tom. Tom had become quite a trouble. Sir Thomas and Lady Tringle,
together, had determined that Tom must be weaned; by which they meant
that he must be cured of his love. But Tom had altogether refused to
be weaned. Mr. Dosett had been requested to deny him admittance to
the house in Kingsbury Crescent, and as this request had been fully
endorsed by Ayala herself orders had been given to the effect to the
parlour-maid. Tom had called more than once, and had been unable to
obtain access to his beloved. But yet he resolutely refused to be
weaned. He told his father to his face that he intended to marry
Ayala, and abused his mother roundly when she attempted to interfere.
The whole family was astounded by his perseverance, so that there had
already sprung up an idea in the minds of some among the Tringles
that he would be successful at last. Augusta was very firm, declaring
that Ayala was a viper. But Sir Thomas, himself, began to inquire,
within his own bosom, whether Tom should not be allowed to settle
down in the manner desired by himself. In no consultation held at
Queen's Gate on the subject was there the slightest expression of an
opinion that Tom might be denied the opportunity of settling down as
he wished through any unwillingness on the part of Ayala.

When things were in this position, Tom sought an interview one
morning with his father in Lombard Street. They rarely saw each other
at the office, each having his own peculiar branch of business. Sir
Thomas manipulated his millions in a little back room of his own,
while Tom, dealing probably with limited thousands, made himself
useful in an outer room. They never went to, or left, the office
together, but Sir Thomas always took care to know that his son
was or was not on the premises. "I want to say a word or two, Sir,
about--about the little affair of mine," said Tom.

"What affair?" said Sir Thomas, looking up from his millions.

"I think I should like to--marry."

"The best thing you can do, my boy; only it depends upon who the
young lady may be."

"My mind is made up about that, Sir; I mean to marry my cousin. I
don't see why a young man isn't to choose for himself." Then Sir
Thomas preached his sermon, but preached it in the manner which men
are wont to use when they know that they are preaching in vain. There
is a tone of refusal, which, though the words used may be manifestly
enough words of denial, is in itself indicative of assent. Sir Thomas
ended the conference by taking a week to think over the matter, and
when the week was over gave way. He was still inclined to think that
marriages with cousins had better be avoided; but he gave way, and at
last promised that if Tom and Ayala were of one mind an income should
be forthcoming.

For the carrying out of this purpose it was necessary that the door
of Uncle Dosett's house should be unlocked, and with the object of
turning the key Sir Thomas himself called at the Admiralty. "I find
my boy is quite in earnest about this," he said to the Admiralty
clerk.

"Oh; indeed."

"I can't say I quite like it myself." Mr. Dosett could only shake his
head. "Cousins had better be cousins, and nothing more."

"And then you would probably expect him to get money?"

"Not at all," said Sir Thomas, proudly. "I have got money enough for
them both. It isn't an affair of money. To make a long story short,
I have given my consent; and, therefore, if you do not mind, I shall
be glad if you will allow Tom to call at the Crescent. Of course,
you may have your own views; but I don't suppose you can hope to do
better for the girl. Cousins do marry, you know, very often." Mr.
Dosett could only say that he could not expect to do anything for the
girl nearly so good, and that, as far as he was concerned, his nephew
Tom should be made quite welcome at Kingsbury Crescent. It was not,
he added, in his power to answer for Ayala. As to this, Sir Thomas
did not seem to have any doubts. The good things of the world, which
it was in his power to offer, were so good, that it was hardly
probable that a young lady in Ayala's position should refuse them.

"My dear," said Aunt Margaret, the next morning, speaking in her most
suasive tone, "your Cousin Tom is to be allowed to call here."

"Tom Tringle?"

"Yes, my dear. Sir Thomas has consented."

"Then he had better not," said Ayala, bristling up in hot anger.
"Uncle Tom has got nothing to do with it, either in refusing or
consenting. I won't see him."

"I think you must see him if he calls."

"But I don't want. Oh, Aunt Margaret, pray make him not come. I
don't like him a bit. We are doing so very well. Are we not, Aunt
Margaret?"

"Certainly, my dear, we are doing very well;--at least, I hope so.
But you are old enough now to understand that this is a very serious
matter."

"Of course it is serious," said Ayala, who certainly was not guilty
of the fault of making light of her future life. Those dreams of
hers, in which were contained all her hopes and all her aspirations,
were very serious to her. This was so much the case that she had
by no means thought of her Cousin Tom in a light spirit, as though
he were a matter of no moment to her. He was to her just what the
Beast must have been to the Beauty, when the Beast first began to
be in love. But her safety had consisted in the fact that no one
had approved of the Beast being in love with her. Now she could
understand that all the horrors of oppression might fall upon her. Of
course it was serious; but not the less was she resolved that nothing
should induce her to marry the Beast.

"I think you ought to see him when he comes, and to remember how
different it will be when he comes with the approval of his father.
It is, of course, saying that they are ready to welcome you as their
daughter."

"I don't want to be anybody's daughter."

"But, Ayala, there are so many things to be thought of. Here is a
young man who is able to give you not only every comfort but great
opulence."

"I don't want to be opulent."

"And he will be a baronet."

"I don't care about baronets, Aunt Margaret."

"And you will have a house of your own in which you may be of service
to your sister."

"I had rather she should have a house."

"But Tom is not in love with Lucy."

"He is such a lout! Aunt Margaret, I won't have anything to say to
him. I would a great deal sooner die. Uncle Tom has no right to send
him here. They have got rid of me, and I am very glad of it; but
it isn't fair that he should come after me now that I'm gone away.
Couldn't Uncle Reginald tell him to stay away?"

A great deal more was said, but nothing that was said had the
slightest effect on Ayala. When she was told of her dependent
position, and of the splendour of the prospects offered, she declared
that she would rather go into the poor-house than marry her cousin.
When she was told that Tom was good-natured, honest, and true, she
declared that good-nature, honesty, and truth had nothing to do with
it. When she was asked what it was that she looked forward to in the
world she could merely sob and say that there was nothing. She could
not tell even her sister Lucy of those dreams and castles. How, then,
could she explain them to her Aunt Margaret? How could she make her
aunt understand that there could be no place in her heart for Tom
Tringle seeing that it was to be kept in reserve for some angel of
light who would surely make his appearance in due season,--but who
must still be there, present to her as her angel of light, even
should he never show himself in the flesh. How vain it was to talk
of Tom Tringle to her, when she had so visible before her eyes that
angel of light with whom she was compelled to compare him!

But, though she could not be brought to say that she would listen
patiently to his story, she was nevertheless made to understand that
she must see him when he came to her. Aunt Margaret was very full on
that subject. A young man who was approved of by the young lady's
friends, and who had means at command, was, in Mrs. Dosett's opinion,
entitled to a hearing. How otherwise were properly authorised
marriages to be made up and arranged? When this was going on there
was in some slight degree a diminished sympathy between Ayala and her
aunt. Ayala still continued her household duties,--over which, in the
privacy of her own room, she groaned sadly; but she continued them
in silence. Her aunt, upon whom she had counted, was, she thought,
turning against her. Mrs. Dosett, on the other hand, declared to
herself that the girl was romantic and silly. Husbands with every
immediate comfort, and a prospect of almost unlimited wealth, are not
to be found under every hedge. What right could a girl so dependent
as Ayala have to refuse an eligible match? She therefore in this way
became an advocate on behalf of Tom,--as did also Uncle Reginald,
more mildly. Uncle Reginald merely remarked that Tom was attending
to his business, which was a great thing in a young man. It was not
much, but it showed Ayala that in this matter her uncle was her
enemy. In this, her terrible crisis, she had not a friend, unless it
might be Lucy.

Then a day was fixed on which Tom was to come, which made the matter
more terrible by anticipation. "What can be the good?" Ayala said to
her aunt when the hour named for the interview was told her, "as I
can tell him everything just as well without his coming at all." But
all that had been settled. Aunt Margaret had repeated over and over
again that such an excellent young man as Tom, with such admirable
intentions, was entitled to a hearing from any young lady. In reply
to this Ayala simply made a grimace, which was intended to signify
the utter contempt in which she held her cousin Tom with all his
wealth.

Tom Tringle, in spite of his rings and a certain dash of vulgarity,
which was, perhaps, not altogether his own fault, was not a bad
fellow. Having taken it into his heart that he was very much in love
he was very much in love. He pictured to himself a happiness of a
wholesome cleanly kind. To have the girl as his own, to caress her
and foster her, and expend himself in making her happy; to exalt her,
so as to have it acknowledged that she was, at any rate, as important
as Augusta; to learn something from her, so that he, too, might
become romantic, and in some degree poetical;--all this had come
home to him in a not ignoble manner. But it had not come home to him
that Ayala might probably refuse him. Hitherto Ayala had been very
persistent in her refusals; but then hitherto there had existed the
opposition of all the family. Now he had overcome that, and he felt
therefore that he was entitled to ask and to receive.

On the day fixed, and at the hour fixed, he came in the plenitude of
all his rings. Poor Tom! It was a pity that he should have had no
one to advise him as to his apparel. Ayala hated his jewelry. She
was not quite distinct in her mind as to the raiment which would be
worn by the angel of light when he should come, but she was sure
that he would not be chiefly conspicuous for heavy gilding; and Tom,
moreover, had a waistcoat which would of itself have been suicidal.
Such as he was, however, he was shown up into the drawing-room, where
he found Ayala alone. It was certainly a misfortune to him that no
preliminary conversation was possible. Ayala had been instructed
to be there with the express object of listening to an offer of
marriage. The work had to be done,--and should be done; but it would
not admit of other ordinary courtesies. She was very angry with
him, and she looked her anger. Why should she be subjected to this
terrible annoyance? He had sense enough to perceive that there was no
place for preliminary courtesy, and therefore rushed away at once to
the matter in hand. "Ayala!" he exclaimed, coming and standing before
her as she sat upon the sofa.

"Tom!" she said, looking boldly up into his face.

"Ayala, I love you better than anything else in the world."

"But what's the good of it?"

"Of course it was different when I told you so before. I meant to
stick to it, and I was determined that the governor should give way.
But you couldn't know that. Mother and the girls were all against
us."

"They weren't against me," said Ayala.

"They were against our being married, and so they squeezed you out
as it were. That is why you have been sent to this place. But they
understand me now, and know what I am about. They have all given
their consent, and the governor has promised to be liberal. When he
says a thing he'll do it. There will be lots of money."

"I don't care a bit about money," said Ayala, fiercely.

"No more do I,--except only that it is comfortable. It wouldn't do to
marry without money,--would it?"

"It would do very well if anybody cared for anybody." The angel of
light generally appeared "in formâ pauperis," though there was always
about him a tinge of bright azure which was hardly compatible with
the draggle-tailed hue of everyday poverty.

"But an income is a good thing, and the governor will come down like
a brick."

"The governor has nothing to do with it. I told you before that it
is all nonsense. If you will only go away and say nothing about it I
shall always think you very good-natured."

"But I won't go away," said Tom speaking out boldly, "I mean to stick
to it. Ayala, I don't believe you understand that I am thoroughly in
earnest."

"Why shouldn't I be in earnest, too?"

"But I love you, Ayala. I have set my heart upon it. You don't know
how well I love you. I have quite made up my mind about it."

"And I have made up my mind."

"But Ayala--" Now the tenor of his face changed, and something of the
look of a despairing lover took the place of that offensive triumph
which had at first sat upon his brow. "I don't suppose you care for
any other fellow yet."

There was the angel of light. But even though she might be most
anxious to explain to him that his suit was altogether impracticable
she could say nothing to him about the angel. Though she was sure
that the angel would come, she was not certain that she would ever
give herself altogether even to the angel. The celestial castle
which was ever being built in her imagination was as yet very much
complicated. But had it been ever so clear it would have been quite
impossible to explain anything of this to her cousin Tom. "That has
nothing to do with it," she said.

"If you knew how I love you!" This came from him with a sob, and as
he sobbed he went down before her on his knees.

"Don't be a fool, Tom,--pray don't. If you won't get up I shall go
away. I must go away. I have heard all that there is to hear. I told
them that there is no use in your coming."

"Ayala!" with this there were veritable sobs.

"Then why don't you give it up and let us be good friends."

"I can't give it up. I won't give it up. When a fellow means it as I
do he never gives it up. Nothing on earth shall make me give it up.
Ayala, you've got to do it, and so I tell you."

"Nobody can make me," said Ayala, nodding her head, but somewhat
tamed by the unexpected passion of the young man.

"Then you won't say one kind word to me?"

"I can't say anything kinder."

"Very well. Then I shall go away and come again constantly till you
do. I mean to have you. When you come to know how very much I love
you I do think you will give way at last." With that he picked
himself up from the ground and hurried out of the house without
saying another word.




CHAPTER XII.

"WOULD YOU?"


The scene described in the last chapter took place in March. For
three days afterwards there was quiescence in Kingsbury Crescent.
Then there came a letter from Tom to Ayala, very pressing, full of
love and resolution, offering to wait any time,--even a month,--if
she wished it, but still persisting in his declared intention of
marrying her sooner or later;--not by any means a bad letter had
there not been about it a little touch of bombast which made it
odious to Ayala's sensitive appreciation. To this. Ayala wrote a
reply in the following words:


   When I tell you that I won't, you oughtn't to go on. It
   isn't manly.

   AYALA.

   Pray do not write again for I shall never answer another.


Of this she said nothing to Mrs. Dosett, though the arrival of Tom's
letter must have been known to that lady. And she posted her own
epistle without a word as to what she was doing.

She wrote again and again to Lucy imploring her sister to come to
her, urging that as circumstances now were she could not show herself
at the house in Queen's Gate. To these Lucy always replied; but she
did not reply by coming, and hardly made it intelligible why she did
not come. Aunt Emmeline hoped, she said, that Ayala would very soon
be able to be at Queen's Gate. Then there was a difficulty about the
carriage. No one would walk across with her except Tom; and walking
by herself was forbidden. Aunt Emmeline did not like cabs. Then there
came a third or fourth letter, in which Lucy was more explanatory,
but yet not sufficiently so. During the Easter recess, which would
take place in the middle of April, Augusta and Mr. Traffick would
be married. The happy couple were to be blessed with a divided
honeymoon. The interval between Easter and Whitsuntide would require
Mr. Traffick's presence in the House, and the bride with her
bridegroom were to return to Queen's Gate. Then they would depart
again for the second holidays, and when they were so gone Aunt
Emmeline hoped that Ayala would come to them for a visit. "They quite
understand," said Lucy, "that it will not do to have you and Augusta
together."

This was not at all what Ayala wanted. "It won't at all do to have me
and him together," said Ayala to herself, alluding of course to Tom
Tringle. But why did not Lucy come over to her? Lucy, who knew so
well that her sister did not want to see any one of the Tringles, who
must have been sure that any visit to Queen's Gate must have been
impossible, ought to have come to her. To whom else could she say
a word in her trouble? It was thus that Ayala argued with herself,
declaring to herself that she must soon die in her misery,--unless
indeed that angel of light might come to her assistance very quickly.

But Lucy had troubles of her own in reference to the family at
Queen's Gate, which did, in fact, make it almost impossible to visit
her sister for some weeks. Sir Thomas had given an unwilling but a
frank consent to his son's marriage,--and then expected simply to be
told that it would take place at such and such a time, when money
would be required. Lady Tringle had given her consent,--but not quite
frankly. She still would

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