CHAPTER 5.

 

            JAMES MAYNARD and Margaret Waring were wards of Lord Littmass, though not by virtue of Chancery. When children they had constantly met in his house in Mayfair, during the boy’s holidays. James, who was some several years the elder, had from the first been awed and attracted by the weird calmness and spiritual transparency of Margaret’s nature. To his wayward, fitful disposition, recognising no heaven save one that must be taken by storm, this quiet grace was as a new Apocalypse; but he scarcely became conscious of the effect she had produced on him until he met her unexpectedly, when, in her fifteenth year, she was sojourning at Heidelberg with an unmarried elder sister of her guardian, who had been taken there on her way to Rome. Lady Primavera, or, as she was familiarly styled among her acquaintances, Lady Prim, no sooner learnt that the child had found an old friend and playmate with whom she roamed about the old ruins, and admired the rich autumnal tints of the woods that reached far away over the hill-tops, and that this old friend was James Maynard, than she at once, and as if by an effort of her will, got well enough to continue her journey. This resolution was precipitated by the demonstrative conduct of certain students of the University of Heidelberg. Poor Margaret, who was tall for her age, had quite unconsciously excited the fierce admiration of several of these ardent Teuton youths. Two parties, each alike intending to serenade her, met one evening under her window; but from songs they proceeded to blows, several were wounded, and the disturbance was so serious that the Burgomaster called next morning, to explain the cause of it to Lady Prim, and to apologise on behalf of the town.

 

            Endowed with such a keen appreciation of the ‘improper’ as to be in the habit of denouncing the most innocent romps of children as ‘bold and dangerous familiarities,’ whenever the party consisted of both sexes, Lady Prim took fire at the equivocal

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position of her charge, and began to look upon Margaret as a firebrand, dangerous alike to herself and others and so, suddenly left Heidelberg for her winter’s destination.

 

            Born in Florence while her father held the Embassy there, christened by an Italian name, and decidedly more Catholic than Protestant at heart, she looked to Rome as her ultimate residence, and now hastened thither with the child whom her brother had committed to her charge, and a favourite old servant of the family, who had known Margaret’s mother, and had tended Margaret herself from infancy.

 

            Not for herself only was Lady Prim anxious to reach Roma. There was a vague notion in her mind that the circumstances attending Margaret’s birth were somehow such as required to be in some way remedied by priestly contact, and that a journey to Rome was a sort of pilgrimage, the performance of which exercised a healthy and retrospective influence. Decided as were this good lady’s ideas of duty, her perceptions of fact were very dim. Her brother’s ascendancy over her was complete. He had left her in doubt about Margaret’s real history, intimating that it was not a subject for her to enter upon; and she ever after rigidly abstained from inquiry or conjecture, believing that if it were ‘proper’ for her to know it she would have known it. She was not aware that her ignorance was not shared by nurse Partridge, for her character was one that prohibited indulgence in anything approaching to familiar conversation with servants; and the dame looked upon herself as belonging to Lord Littmass rather than to his sister, and to Margaret more than to either. While serving Lady Prim she did not love her; and she had no promptings, either from within or from without, to disclose to her aught that she knew.

 

            In short, the dame was a good creature, who understood young people, though somewhat puzzled by Margaret whom she dearly loved and she resented the prudery that would chill young lives with gloom and distrust. She was a great ally, also, of James Maynard and if she had any suspicions of his parentage, she kept them so entirely to herself, that even Lord Littmass was in doubt whether she knew or not. It was under her kindly eye that they had explored the wild glens of the Neckar; and it was owing to the contagion of her reticence, rather than to any conscious caution, that Margaret adopted the same habit of silence as to her outdoor companionship.

 

            Such reserve, indeed, was but part of Margaret’s character,

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and it well became her. It was in perfect harmony with the wondering, dreamy look that was habitual to her; a look that seemed to imply that she was but a new arrival in the world from some other state of existence, and had not yet learnt to understand its ways, or become accustomed to the things about her. When now and then a gleam of sudden appreciation lighted up her eyes, as James Maynard described to her the organism of some flower, or explained the significance of some legend, painting, or statue, he started at its wondrous suggestiveness of a double existence of which the old was but slowly giving place to the new, – so slowly, indeed, that he sometimes doubted if the angel would ever quite yield to the woman. On the occasion of Lady Prim’s sudden alarm, she vanished from Heidelberg, without an opportunity of bidding farewell to James. His first impulse was to follow at once in her supposed track but he reflected. His vacation was just over. His duties at Oxford were about to recommence, and she had told him that Rome was to be her destination for the winter. ‘Perhaps,’ said he to himself, ‘I shall find my way thither at Christmas.’ Christmas came, and with it duties which he could not conscientiously evade. The Easter vacation brought him no liberty, and was, moreover, too short to see Rome satisfactorily. The long summer vacation gave him a scientific commission to South America. And so winter came round again before he could carry out his old intention of visiting Rome. Then he went, thinking but little of his child friend, and much of the place he was going to see.

 

            He had paid his annual visit to Lord Littmass, and found him in mourning for his sister, Lady Prim, who had died of heart disease accelerated by starvation during the previous Lent; for, under the spiritual manipulation of the priests, she had followed her native bent and become very devout.

 

            ‘It is the weak point of our family,’ said Lord Littmass, when imparting this information to Maynard; ‘the heart weakness, I mean, not the devoutness; and it has the advantage of saving doctors’ bills, and the discomfort of a long illness; while its disadvantages may be postponed indefinitely by care.’

 

            But he said nothing of Margaret and her nurse, and Maynard did not venture any inquiry. Perhaps it did not occur to him to do so, the information being vouchsafed in reference only to Lord Littmass’s garb. So to Rome went James Maynard, with a whole month in which to explore its glories, and no

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thought of any personal interests or engrossments to distract his attention.

 

 

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