CHAPTER XV.

CLOUDS.

A YEAR had gone its round, spring yielding to summer, summer fading into autumn, autumn giving place to winter, winter once more budding into spring.

Gwendoline lived still at the Leys, and had lived there through all these months, with only one slight break of a fortnight at Malvern with Lady Halcot. The old lady rarely cared now to leave Riversmouth.

Sometimes Gwendoline found it difficult to believe that only one year had passed since she was banished from her home. The time seemed interminable to look back upon; and the busy happy London life appeared to lie indefinitely far behind. Gwendoline wondered often how she could ever have murmured at the surroundings of that dear life. The troubles in it seemed so small to her now, the happiness so great. She did so thirst to be again in an atmosphere of lovingkindness, away from all this cold grandeur.

Strange to say, Gwendoline had found no friends in Riversmouth. Lady Halcot kept everybody at a distance. Mr. Fosbrook had made one attempt to advance acquaintanceship between Gwendoline and his sister-housekeeper; but Lady Halcot did not like Miss Fosbrook, and she gave him so decided a snubbing that the offence could hardly be repeated. Gwendoline stood entirely alone.

The Halcombes had not quitted their old home, though Mr. Halcombe's present clerkship, bringing in about £150 per annum, lay at an inconvenient distance. The said clerkship, together with Lady Halcot's settlement, and Victor's lately increased pay, tended to keep them all in greater comfort. Two or three of the boys had been sent to a boarding-school, which lessened the amount of home-work. Gwendoline knew that her parents' cares were much lightened. Sometimes she and her mother exchanged by post some words of sorrowful longing; but generally each wrote cheerily for the other's sake, suppressing any mention of troubles, and neither, perhaps, quite knew how the other pined for a sight of her face.

Conrad Withers no longer filled the post of secretary to Lady Halcot. A grave and elderly man of greater competence gave her the assistance which of late she had increasingly needed. Conrad had taken it into his simple head to fall in love with Gwendoline. Miss Withers did not exactly discourage him; but she counselled patience not without secret hopes of bringing the matter to pass. Gwendoline, as Lady Halcot's adopted child, was distasteful to her; but Gwendoline, the probable heiress, as Conrad's "fiancée," would have been quite another thing.

Miss Withers over-estimated, in some degree, her own influence with the old lady; for probably nothing would ever have induced Lady Halcot to consent to such an engagement, had Gwendoline herself become willing. She also over-estimated Conrad's powers of self-command. The gradual and subtle working out of plans, which suited Miss Withers, was an impossibility to him. He endured a few weeks of delay, in deference to her wishes; then, under a sudden impulse, he precipitated matters by making a direct proposal.

Gwendoline, a good deal astonished at his boldness, refused him at once, kindly yet decisively. She passed some hours of painful hesitation as to her next step; and then followed her usual habit of telling Lady Halcot what had occurred.

The delay was unfortunate. Miss Withers, feeling convinced that Gwendoline would certainly speak, took her own measures, and made use of the interim. By some delicate manipulation of the tale, and a little additional colouring, she caused it to appear that the "poor silly boy," as she called him, had been the victim of Gwendoline's trifling—the helpless fly caught in the web of her attractions, and flung carelessly away so soon as Gwendoline had had her amusement.

Miss Withers' daily increasing influence over Lady Halcot, and Lady Halcot's own detestation of anything like flirting, caused this tale to carry weight. Gwendoline's own version of affairs, following after, came too late to counteract the mischief. Lady Halcot was angry with everybody,—angry with Conrad for his temerity; angry with Miss Withers for not preventing the thing; doubly angry with Gwendoline, alike for her delay in speaking, and for her supposed conduct towards the unfortunate Conrad.

Conrad was dismissed from his employ on the spot, with a quarter's salary in advance, and a promise of recommendation to work elsewhere,—"if he could find anything he was fit for," Lady Halcot grimly added.

Miss Withers could not forgive Gwendoline this banishment of her nephew, for which poor Gwendoline was certainly not responsible. While enduring meekly her own share of Lady Halcot's annoyance, Miss Withers stealthily fanned into continued existence Lady Halcot's displeasure towards Gwendoline.

To Gwendoline the change in Lady Halcot's bearing was an utter mystery. She was unable to imagine any reason why Conrad's foolish fancy should be visited upon her so heavily. Lady Halcot's air of cold vexation, persisted in week after week, was simply inexplicable. Sometimes she fancied she caught glimpses of strong dislike to herself underlying Miss Withers' soft civility of manner, and she wondered whether the clue lay there; but again she would blame her own thoughts as unkind and suspicious, and would resolve to wait patiently for a lightening of the cloud. At times she felt strongly disposed to ask an explanation from Lady Halcot; and the step might have been a wise one. It was, however, impossible to tell how such a request would be received, and Gwendoline's courage failed. Her bright free spirit was growing positively timid under the long pressure of her present life.

Matters had gone on thus during many weeks, when one day Gwendoline received by post a short note from Conrad Withers. It ran as follows:—

"DEAR MISS HALCOMBE,—I have not any right to send you a letter, of course, but you'll forgive me this once. I want to say something to you, and that is—Mind you beware of my aunt. She is a good woman, I suppose, as good people go,—at least, she has been good to me and my sisters; but she has claws beneath her velvet pads, and she hates you from the very bottom of her heart. Mind, if she can oust you from the Leys, she will! I think you ought to be warned, for you are too good to suspect anybody—a different sort of goodness from the 'other!' I didn't mean to say so much when I began. Of course this is strictly in confidence. I depend on you not to say a word to anybody, for you'll get me into an awful mess if you do. But you must just keep your eyes open.—Yours ever,—

"C. WITHERS."

Gwendoline read and re-read the scrawl in painful bewilderment. What should she do? How could she betray the poor fellow's well-meant effort to warn her? Yet might she venture to keep his secret? Gwendoline was naturally impulsive, and an impulse seized upon her now. The letter had been brought to her room by a servant, and she did not know that it had lain for a few minutes in the hall, with some others by the same post, and that Miss Withers had inspected them. Conrad had endeavoured to disguise his handwriting in the address; an abortive attempt, so far as his aunt's eyes were concerned.

Gwendoline, ignorant of this, and hearing a footstep approaching, crumpled sheet and envelope together and flung them into the fire. The blackened edges were curling still when Miss Withers entered with some slight message from Lady Halcot; and they did not escape that lady's notice.

Miss Withers withdrew, leaving Gwendoline a prey to troubled thought. The deed was done, but the question was scarcely settled thereby. For many hours she was tossed to and fro in utter perplexity as to her right course. Inclination would have led her, for her own sake, to divulge the whole to Lady Halcot; but a fear of bringing trouble upon Conrad, and a conscientious shrinking from anything like betrayal of confidence, withheld her.

Days passed, and nothing was said. Gwendoline did not speak, neither did Lady Halcot. It was not Lady Halcot's fashion to ask an explanation which she expected, as her due, to come spontaneously. Miss Withers had not failed to inform Lady Halcot of the arrival of the letter, adding to her information regrets as to "the poor boy's folly," and mild surmises that some encouragement from Gwendoline must have caused the deed.

"I do not believe that," Lady Halcot said. "I have always found Miss Halcombe straightforward and obedient hitherto. Your nephew is by no means wanting in assurance, Miss Withers. I shall no doubt hear all from Miss Halcombe before night."

But in a little while, Lady Halcot did believe it—naturally, perhaps, since Gwendoline said nothing.

So the cloud upon Gwendoline grew darker, she herself unknowing why. She could not see the weaving of the web behind the scenes, could not tell how the gradual process of alienation was carried on, could not guess how her most unimportant remarks were detailed to Lady Halcot, with new meanings of which she herself had never dreamt. She was conscious of a wall of separation growing up between herself and Lady Halcot, but the manner of its growth was a mystery to her. That Miss Withers had a hand in the matter she could no longer doubt. Conrad's letter supplied her with a clue thus far. It supplied her, however, with no means of circumventing the evil.

Gwendoline had never passed through a trial of this description before. Accustomed, up to the time of leaving her London home, to be petted, beloved, and sought after, in her little circle of acquaintances; accustomed, since coming to Riversmouth, to be admired and trusted and made much of,—it was an experience no less new than painful to find herself thrust out into the cold. The cessation of Lady Halcot's interest in her concerns revealed to her how much she had valued that interest. She was still looked after, told what to do, desired where to go; but the manner of the superintendence exercised was sharp and cold, as to a child in disgrace. Sometimes she wondered whether Lady Halcot were growing tired of her, and would one day decide to send her home; and her heart sprang at the thought. But no hint of such an intention ever dropped from Lady Halcot's lips.

Gwendoline drooped under this icy atmosphere like a hothouse plant turned out into the frost. Without any definite ailment, she grew thin, pale, and listless, and the days seemed to her to drag by interminably, lacking life and interest. She had nothing particular to do for anyone except herself, and the mental energy necessary for steady self-improvement seemed of late to have died away. The weariness of long patience was upon her.

Yet she did not murmur, and she was patient still. Whatever results this time of trial might have in the end remained to be seen; but its present effect was distinctly to draw her nearer to her God. In her lack of earthly friends, she clung the more closely to her Heavenly Friend. The unsatisfied thirst for earthly love made her drink more deeply of the river of Divine love. Even now, in the pain of her loneliness, Gwendoline knew that the pain was "good for her."

Mr. Selwyn came down to Riversmouth one spring day, by the old lady's request, to discuss certain matters divulged by her to nobody. The change in Gwendoline's position, and in Gwendoline herself, struck him forcibly. He had been down several months earlier, just before the Conrad affair, and had seen Gwendoline well and happy, seemingly established as Lady Halcot's especial favourite. Lady Halcot had been giving her riding-lessons, and had just presented her with a beautiful little horse. He well remembered Gwendoline's eager pleasure and gratitude, and her brilliant prettiness on horseback, together with Lady Halcot's evident satisfaction and pride in her. He had counted the whole arrangement a most happy success.

But this sunny May day, when he found himself once more in the old mansion of the Leys, he perceived at once a change. Gwendoline's wistful face and subdued voice, as she met him, told their own tale. She could hardly speak for threatening tears, and she had to turn away lest others should see. At luncheon, he noted with regret her constrained and even timid manner, together with Lady Halcot's cold and repressive bearing, nor did he fail to perceive the covert dislike and silken satisfaction of Miss Withers' air towards Gwendoline.