Lady Merrifield thought she detected a start of Miss Prescott at the name Stokesley, and that her eyes looked anxiously at the speaker. Bessie was not of the sandy part of the family. Was the unattractive schoolboy, once seen, like his sisters? All that was observable was startling similitudes to her own children, though in them the elements of the handsome dark Mohun generally predominated.
But by and by, in a quiet moment, Bessie suddenly asked, "Did you say her name was Magdalen?"
Lady Merrifield laughed. "Four years may do a good deal at that time of life," she said. "I suppose no time ever so changes- changes-what shall I say?-eyes-views-characters. Only constancy in absence is the dangerous thing. There are distinguished examples of-of the mischief of being constant without knowing what one is constant to. Virulent constancy, as Mrs. Malaprop has it."
Magdalen thanked and smiled. Perhaps there was a certain virulent constancy in a remote corner of her heart which had been revived by a certain indescribable look in the eyes and contour of Bessie Merrifield.
And Bessie herself, while sitting under the verandah with Lady Merrifield, while all the others were walking down to embark Lord and Lady Ivinghoe in the yacht, suddenly repeated, "Did you say that her name was Magdalen?"
"Yes; I saw it startled you, my dear."
"It revived an old, old story. I do not know whether there was anything in it. Who or what is she, Aunt Lily? I only know her as the sister of the girl that the Ivinghoes picked up."
"She is the owner of a little property at Arnscombe, and has taken home her four young half-sisters to live with her, after having slaved for them as a governess till she came into this inheritance. She is an excellent person."
"Ah! Was her house at Filsted?"
"I am not sure. Yes, I think the young ones were at school there. You think-"
"I feel certain. May I tell you, Aunt Lily? Some of the others cannot bear to mention my poor Hal; but to me the worst of the sting is gone, since I know he repented."
"My dear, I should be very glad to hear. Your father and mother never mention your brother, and we were away at the time."
"Poor Hal! I am afraid there was a weakness in him. He never had that determination that carried all the others on. He never could get through an examination, and my father put him into a bank at Filsted. By and by, after some years, came a letter telling my father he was gambling very seriously, getting into temptation, and engaging himself to an attorney's daughter. It was while I was living with grandmamma, and he used sometimes to look in on me, and talk to me about this Magdalen. Once he showed me her photograph and I thought I knew her face again. But my father went off, very angry. I have always feared he found poor Hal on the verge of tampering with the bank money, but he never would say a word. He broke everything up, put an end to the engagement if there was one, and sent Hal off to John and George, who had just got their farm in Manitoba, and were getting on by dint of hard work."
"They have done very well, have they not?"
"Yes, by working and living harder than any day labourer at Stokesley. Hal could not stand it, and-and I'm afraid the boys were not very merciful to him, poor fellow, and he got something to do in Winnipeg. There he fell in with a speculator called Golding, they all did in fact; he was a plausible man, whom they all liked, and used to put up at his house when they took waggons in with their produce. He had a daughter, and Johnnie got engaged to her, or thought he was. They all were persuaded to put money into a horrid building speculation,-Henry, what he had brought out, the other two what they had realised. Well, suddenly it all ended. They were all gone, Golding, daughter, Hal and all-yes, all-the money the other boys had put in the thing, off to the States, as we suppose! No trace ever found."
"Really no trace?"
"None! The poor boys lost all they had, and were obliged to begin over again."
"And has really nothing been heard of this unfortunate Hal?"
"There is one thing that does give me a hope. There did come to Stokesley a letter from a Brisbane bank, addressed to J. and G. Merrifield, to the care of Rear-Admiral Merrifield, and in it were bank bills up to the value of what the boys had been robbed of, about two hundred and fifty pounds. Poor Henry must have repented, and wished to make restitution."
"Was there no name, no clue?"
"None at all. We know no more."
"But was there no inquiry made at Brisbane?"
"It was when my father was very ill. The parcel was not opened at first. I have been always sorry he never heard of it; but after all there was no asking of forgiveness, nor anything that could be answered. The boys got it with the tidings of our dear father's death. John came home to see about things, George stayed to look after his Stokesley. They were well over their troubles by that time, and they gave the restored money to David for his churches."
"And no more was done, not even by David?" said Lady Merrifield, thinking over what she had heard from Geraldine Grinstead, and how the Underwoods would have accepted such a token from their lost sheep.
"David did write to Brisbane to the bank, but there never was any answer. There is no knowing how it might have been, if any one had gone out and done his best; but you see we were all much taken up with home duties and cares, and I am afraid we have not dwelt enough upon our poor boy, and he had much against him. The discipline from my dear father, that all the elders responded to with a sort of loyal exultation, only frightened him and made him shifty. They despised him, and I do not think any of us were as kind to him as we ought to have been; though on the whole he liked me the best, for he cared for books and quiet pursuits, such as all laughed at, except David. I wish he could have seen more of David."
"Did your mother hear of this ray of hope?"
"Susan thought it best not to tell her. We used to hear her murmuring his name among all ours in her prayers, Susie, Sam, Hal, Bessie, and so on; but she never was herself enough to understand, and they thought it might only stir her up to expect to see him. Oh, Aunt Lily, I don't think you-any of you-would have gone on so; but you are all much more affectionate and demonstrative than our branch of the family."
"Ah, my dear, I am sure there was a pang in your mother's heart that she never durst mention," said Lady Merrifield, her imagination dwelling in terror on her Wilfred, the one child in whom she could not help detecting the weakness of character of his unhappy cousin. "Depend upon it, Bessie, her prayers were hovering round him all the time, and bringing that act of restitution, though she was not allowed to hear of it."
"I had not thought of that," said Bessie, in a low tone, "though I think David has. I have heard his voice choke over an intercession for the absent."
"Think of it now, my dear, and do not let habitual reserve hinder you from speaking of it to Susan and David, though most likely they have the habit already. Who knows what united prayer may do with Him who deviseth means to bring home His banished?"
Steps returning, Bessie wiped away her tears in haste, actually the first she had shed for the lost Hal, though there was a heartache too deep for tears.
CHAPTER XVI-THE REGIMENT OF WOMEN
"And happier than the merriest games
Is the joy of our new and nobler aims."
F. R. HAVERGAL.
Miss Mohun and Miss Merrifield encountered Miss Prescott and Agatha among a perfect herd of cycles, making Bessie laugh over the recollections of the horror caused at Stokesley by the arrival of Arthurine Arthuret on a tricycle twelve years previously.
The place was the Town Hall, the High School having proved too small for the number of the intended audience, and Lord Rotherwood having been captured, in spite of the Kittiwake being pronounced ready to sail, and all the younger passengers being actually on board, entertaining a party from Clipstone. There he sat enthroned on the platform, with portraits of himself, his Elizabethan ancestor, and the Prince of Wales overhead, and, in propria persona on either side, the Mayor of Rockstone, Captain Henderson, and a sprinkling of the committee, Jane, of course, being one; while in the space beneath was a sea of hats, more or less beflowered and befeathered.