CHAPTER VIII.—IN WHICH CICELY'S IDOLS ARE CAST DOWN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2778, 3 May 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

CHAPTER VIII.—IN WHICH CICELY'S IDOLS ARE CAST DOWN.

"My poor darling," said Cieely, with a tenderness of which even Mrs Le Breton, in spite of her usual determination to accept no sympathy from her friends, could not but feel the charm, 11 how I wish that I could help you !"

" Nobody can help me," said Pauline, lcttiug" her forehead rest for a few moments against Cicely's shoulder, whilst the girl's arm rested lovingly round the cider woman's neck. " Nobody can help me, and I do not want to be helped." Some days had passed since Philip's visit, but she had only just confided to Cicely the contents of her husband's letter. It was a customary thing for Pauline to look sad and depressed after one of Robert Le Breton's communications, and although Cicely had noticed that she was graver and paler than usual, she had not ventured to question her friend as Philip Lorraine had done,

Pauline was always reluctant to speak to Cecily of Robert Le Breton.

"Can Philip not help you ?" Baid the girl. " Philip least of all," answered Pauline, lifting her head. "If Robert wants me to go with him I suppose I shall have to go," " You shall not go!" said Cicely, with a flash of her eye. "Go back to the man who left you friendless and ill in that miserable lodging! As if I would allow that i»

" Youj dear Cicely !" There was a tender scorn in Pauline's voice;

"Yes; I. You shall not leave my house with Robert Le Breton as long as I have any authority in it; I know I haven't any authority over you, and I don't want to have, you dear, sweet thing!" said Cicely, falling down on her knees at Pauline's side, and pressing her lips to Pauline's tremulous fingers, " and I have none—fortuuately—ever Robert Le Breton;'but I have a house of my own, thank Heaven ! and some faithful servants, too; and I think that bolts and bars may avail, if moral suasion wou't, to keep you inside and Mr Le Breton outside it." .

"My dear little romantic girl, we don't live in the Middle 'Ages !" said Pauline smiling sadly.

"It is, rather a pity that we don't 1" said Cicely, with a sound of tears in her sweet laugh. " But living in Ladywell Prior has inspired me. I mean to behave as though I were mediteval. You shall stay here with me, Pauline, and I will send Robert Le Breton away." "How will you manage that?" "By telling him what I think, and what the world thinks, of his behaviour ! You are all too gentle with Robert. lam sure that nobody has told him to his face how mean, and cowardly, and wickcd he has bsen." " Don't you think so? I did my best," said Mrs Lc Breton, with steady cynicism. " But you were his wife. Men don't listen to their wives—at least, so you have told me. • I should like to see whether another woman could not give him a lesson,"

"Don't try, Cicely. I would rather that you did not see him—did not speak to him—again. I know him better than you do."

Something in the chill desolateness of her tone silenced Cicely. She was still kneeling before her friend, with her clasped hands resting on Pauline's lap, and her wistful eyes raised to Pauline's face ; bat Mrs Le Breton seemed not even to be thinking of her. Her eyes looked as though they were fixed upon something very far away ; the lines of her face were rigid and severe.

Presently she roused herself and saw Cicely's tender, mobile face so close to her own that she was obliged to smile and kiss it.

"Dear Cicely," she said, ,; you say 'that you wish you conld help inc. You help me far more than you kuow. I wish I had no troubles of my own to darkeu your life with ! It is not fair to you."

" What a Dice person I should be if I agreed with you!" said Cicely, scornfully. "A selfish, heartless brute of a girl who thought of nobody but herself. How much you would enjoy living with me ! Come, dear Pauline, don't think of Robert Le Breton any' more this afternoon. We will take care that ho does not darken these doors again; and, in the meantime, let us forget him for a little time, or only

think of him as a bad dream, which is not likely to recur. Because, you know, dear, it is really quite practicable for you to refuse to live with Robert Le Breton ; it would bo the easiest thing in the world for you to get a separation from him if you wished to do so. Uncle Anthony said so years ago." Cicely followed up her words by a kies, which was meant to apologise for their straightforward common sense, in case it should wound Pauline's susceptibilities. And then she changed the subject. " It is nearly four o'clock, and I must go and change my frock. Don't you know who is coining this afternoon. '' No. Mr Lorraine ?" "Philip cartainly ; but Philip is to bring with him the object of my detestation—the man called Kinglake. Could I have a headache, and keep away, do you think ?" "Scarcely, with propriety. Be a good child and do your duty as hostess." " Ah, yes ! there's the worry of it!" sighed Cicely. "Imagine a usurper entertaining the last dethroned king of the country at afternoon tea ! I shall feel inclined to make him a courtesy and say, ' Take your right place, sir ; I will abdicate very gladly ; I always felt that I had not the slightest right to be here.""

" What an exaggerated sentiment that would be, Cicely!"

The girl had gone into her dressing loom and Pauline could hear her moving about, openiug wardrobes and shutting drawers with marvellous rapidity, as she continued to speak in her quick, clear tones.

" If you only knew what a burden the Kinglakcs have been to me ever aincc I came here as a girl of fourteen ! Old Richards has been a footman in their time ; Mary Jones a nursinaid ; Farrant, a gardener's boy. They stayed on, I believe, chiefly in the desire to make the lives of the new-comers uncomfortable. The house had been empty for some years between the going away of the Kinglakes and our arrival; and those three had lived in it and kept up the old traditions."

"You never told me they made you uncomfortable," said Pauline.

Oh, no, I was far too proud to say so. But I used to feel dreadfully nervous when Richards put on his grim face and said (so respectfully) to papa ' It's just as you please, of course, sir; but it was never so in my late master's time..' Then there was Mary Jones—' Mrs Kinglake was such a true lady, miss ! She never said a word that would give offence to any living soul !'" " A doubtful compliment."

" Then there was Farrant, promoted to be head gardner—' Sorry I can't give you this bit o' ground, miss ; but you see it was the young gentleman's garding, and I don't like to see it cut to pieces What was one to do but to retire humbly from the contest, and all but beg his pardon for presuming on the young gentleman's possessions ?" " I don't suppose that you ever were really so weak as you represent, Cicely." "You don't know how weak I can be, thmi, papa was not weak; he used to insist on his plans being carried out. But one thing I confess, the spindle-legged chairs iu my sitting-room were my doing."

There was a little pause, then Cicely reappeared, radiant iu a lemon-coloured garment which became her admirably, with strings of amber beads round her neck aud wrists, and a white flower at her throat. She seldom required the services of a maid, unless she were dressing for a party ; she greatly preferred to use her own hands and her own feet, although, as she ■ had ■ told Pauline one day with a comical face, Mary Jones had informed her that "Mrs Kinglake had never buttoned her own boots for twentyfive years." " Mrs Kinglake must have been a very lazy person, I think," Cicely added. She came back to Mrs Le Breton's side with a somewhat graver countenance

than before, and proceeded with the half earnest recital of her grievances.

" The Church and the picture gallery are the places in which I feel worst. I sit and read the names on the tablets. There was one Ralph, who was a courtier in King Hal's time, and got the property when the monasteries were destroyed ; and Francis, who sailed round the world with Drake; and Richard, who was a Royalist in Charles' time ; and Kenelm, who tried to find the philosopher's stone and couldn't. Their tombs are all in the church, and their pictures in the gallery, and I wish with all my heart that dear papa had behaved like any other parvenu, and built me a staring red brick mansion in a new neighbourhood, surrounded by new grounds newly laid out with spiky, little, expensive trees—also new and juvenile—and not presented me with a real live Priory, haunted by the ghosts of men with whom one has not the least connection or sympathy 1 So now let us go downstairs, Pauline ; I told them to bring tea into the little drawing-rnom, which has at least the advantage of having been entirely re-furnished since the days of the Kinglake dynasty." Mrs Le Breton was not without curiosity to see the man whose fathers had for so many years been the masters of Ladywell Priory. With all her acuteness, she could not be quite sure whether Cicely was in earnest or whether she was merely acting a somewhat whimsical part in objecting so strongly to a visit from one of the Kinglakes. Certainly she showed no sign of shyne*s nor of unfriendliness as she stood talking to the tall stranger whom Phillip Lorraine had introduced. She looked at him with self-possession, which was not devoid of quaint amusement at his position and her own ; and there was a shrewd gleam in her eye when the conversation turned, as it speedily did, upon the old connection of the Kinglake family with Ladywell. ,

Cicely identified Giles Kinglake at ouce, and classed him in her mind as belonging to that branch of the family which had always betrayed a speculative and adventurous turn. He was like Francis Kinglake, who had sailed away to the Indies and had never more been heard of; and Kenelm, who was said to have anticipated the latest discoveries in electricity, and joined a little dabbling in alchemy to his scientific attainments ; be was especially like Giles, of Jacobite fame, who had been hanged for treason in one of the Georgian reigns. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, anil yet there was something of the student's air about him —the look of one who spent a great part of his life in towns; his face had lost the bronze which would have greatly increased his resemblance to the portraits of liis ancestors. Cicely looked for Kenelm Kinglakc's dreaminess in his brown eyes, and was startled when she found there the mingled lire and softness which characterised the expression of an earlier progenitor — Francis, the rover of the seas. But he had Keuelm's speculative brow, with a sweep of brown hair that was apt to fall across it and hide its height; and the fine feathers bore the subtly critical and observant look which Cicely had noted in the picture of the alchemist. Whether or no he had Kenelm's beiutiful mouth —almost too beautiful and sensitive for a man, perhaps—she could not determine, for the brown moustache and beard almost entirely concealed its form from sight. He)?looked about thirty-five—he was iu reality two or three years younger. They had finished tea before the subject which had so much exercised Cicely's mind was entered upon. Kinglake began by remarking upon the changes that had been made in the village since he saw it last.

" How long is it since you were here ?" said MrsLe Breton.

" I have not been here for twenty two years. I was nearly eleven when my father sold the place. I suppose it is not to be expected that I should remember very much about it," he said so easily and pleasantly that Cicely experienced a sudden feeling of relief. " I don't remember this room at all, for instance."

" it was once a library," said Cicely. " At least, so Mary Jones and Richards told us. You will remember Mary Jones and Richards, no doubt, Mr Kinglake ? They often speak about you."

" Do they ? I cannot recall their names or their faces exactly. Are they here still.

" Oh, yes ; we keptjas many of the old servants of the house as we possibly could," said Cicely, anxiously. "We would not on any account have let them feel that their home was lost because we had come. Richards has been here, he tells me, for upwards of thirty-seven years."

" I remember him." And then Giles Kinglake laughed. "I hope you have not found him as troublesome as he was in his youth to my parents, Miss Lorraine. He had a habit of quoting our ancestors and holding us all up to scorn in a respectful way which was unspeakably trying."

" J)o you mean to say he behaved in that way to you ?" said Cicely, laughing in her turn. " Oh, I am very glad to hear it. You arc the objects of his adoration now, anil we—wo bear the penalty !" She was surprised to find herself saying this so lightly to the very man whose visit she had feared; and she was more surprised to find tint lie was little dis posed to believe in Richards' devotion. " I'm afraid we always considered Richards rather a humbug," said Mr Kinglake. " I don't remember Mary Jones. The only old servants who were really attached to us, as far as I know, went away with us. I have one of them there now, in Loudou."

Cicely felt as if Richards and Mary Jones entered into a conspiracy to deceive her. " Sut—you know Farrant ?" she said, with emphasis, "I'm afraid I don't know Farrant, either," said Giles, looking at his hostess with very slight comprehension of her state of mind. "Unless he was once a lad whom my father turned off for stealing tulips. Ido remember him."

Cicely, held her psace, and Philip Lorraine, suspecting her embarassment, came to her aid.

"Mr Kmglakc would like to see the picture gallery before the light goes, I think, Cicely, and the library, too. The other side of the house is not us-ed, and is generally locked up, I believe."

"I have the keys here," said Cicely, rising. " Shall we go now, Mr Kinglake ?"

"I am sorry to give you this trouble," he said. " I must explain to you how it comes about that I am here, Miss Lorraine. I have undertaken to help a friend who is writing a book on the manor-houses of Kent, and Lady well Priory—which, of course, must not be omitted ou auy account—comes within my beat. I am anxious to verify my friend's belief that there is some very old work in the west wiug, but I cannot do that without an examiuation of the architecture. Your cousin, Mr Lorraine, assured me that you would let me see the west wiug with niy own eyes." He made rather a long explanation, because ho fancied from the blank expression of Cicely's face that she had expected something totally different —he could not tell what. She coloured as she assured him, at tho close of his speech, that she was pleased to receive him at Ladywell, and

that the whole house was free to him to go whithersoever he chose. And theu she led the way to the picture gallery, of which she was really very proud, set him face to face with the portrait of his ancestor, Kenelm Kinglake, and waited with some anxiety for his next words. But Mr Kinglake did not seem to be a demonstrative man. He viewed the pictures with polite unconcern. " I suppose that you remember them all ?" said Cicely."

" Not very well. I don't know much about art. I remember this one— Kenelm—and that of my namesake over there, because they were the two genuine ones."

Genuine ones!" gasped Cicely." " Aren't they all genuine ?" Mr Kinglake looked at her with a smile, which lapsed into a graver expression as he met her look of bewilderment.

Some of them are genuine, no doubt," he said. " One cannot be certain of all the pictures in a gallery, Miss Lorraine. No doubt they are as genuine as most of the portraits oue meets now-a-days. Ciceiy'3 spirits seeming to be a little damped by these remarks, Phillip and Mrs Le Breton assumed the lead in conversation, and led him past the pictures and into the old library. Here Mr Kinglake seemed more at home. "I do remember this place," he said. " Yea, I spent a good many hours reading romances in the old window-seat here. But you have changed the furniture, I think ?"

"I knew he would miss the spindlelegs," muttered Cicely in Pauline's ear ; but there was now more pleasure than anxiety in her tone. Aloud, she answered boldly—

" It has gone into my own sitting-room upstairs. My father liked a more solid kind of furniture for a library."

"No doubt lie was right," said Kinglake, simply. " This is a great deal more suitable, I never cared much for Chippendale chairs myself."

" Vou would like to see the old room upstairs ?" said Cicely, rather abruptly. "Thank you, no. I think I had better get to the older part of the building at once, if you will excuse me. 1 must be back in town this evening, and the light will be very good just now for the west wing."

Accordingly Cicely let him go whither his tastes seemed to lead him, under Phillip's guidance. Notthat Mr Kinglake required imieh guidance, for, as he told Lorraine, he remembered this part of the building very much better than the more modern portion, and he spent two hours there with great satisfaction to li'iiiself, whilst Philip walked, talked, or sat oil a stone and smoked. They d. dined an invitation to ditiuer which Mrs Le Breton brought to them, and it was not until the sun was setting that Giles declared his task t> he done. He had made one or two careful drawings of | arrs of the architecture, for, in spite of wh it he had said of his ignorance of art, he was himself no mean draughtsman, and he had scraped away the mould from a date and an inscription, and was altogether flushed, dusty, and much more excited than he had been at his first appearance upon the scene at Lady well. "I've finished for to-night, Ph'l," he said, cheerily. "I think old Gough will be satisfied. But I should like to run down again to-morrow if Miss Lorraine would allow me to come." " Of course—she'll be delighted." " And, hy-lhe-bye, Lorraine, I did not like to say much to her at the time, but I think she ought to be told the sooner or later the history of those pictures. I think her father must have known it when he bought the place." " What history ?" " Why. they were nearly all done by a ■protege of my great-grandfather's, to fill up the spaces in that gallery. Ite was a boastful old fellow, my great-grandfather, and wanted to talk about the portraits of his ancestors, I imagine, so the artist had to evolve them from his inner consciousness, They are all very much alike, more or less copied from the faces of Keuelm and Francis, which were genuine."

" Those are the only ones of real historical value, then?"

" The originals were. But these are not the originals, Phil ; the originals are hanging in my own study at home. These are only very clever copies. They are very like the real pictures, but not the genuine article themselves. I suppose that Mr Lorraine did not know much of painting ?" ''Nothing, I believe."

" And, of oour.fo, liis daughter knows only what ho told her. I am sure that no advantage was taken when the house was iirst sold ; but it is a pity th.it Miss Lorraine should thiiik the pictures valuable or trustworthy when they are not so. Perhaps you will tell her about than." " I will. She will be vexed, I fear ; she takes a great pride and pleasure in the antiquity of the house and its belongings." Giles Kinglako looked surprised. " I ehould have thought Hlie would have got over that phaso of feeling," ho snid, carelessly. " I know one goes through it when one is young, but. in far!, I suppose that I grew to identify this house

with all tho family troubles and embarrassments until it became positively uuploasant to ma. I know that I was awfully glad when we got rid of it." " Then he is a Goth !" said Cioely, to whom this conversation was repeated later in the evening. "A Goth and a Philistine, and I hate him. I was iitver so thoroughly disappointed in anybody in uiy life ?" (To be conliiiHcd.J