CHAPTER I
CAPTAIN ARUNDEL'S REVENGE
Edward Arundel went back to his lonely home with a settled purpose in his mind. He would leave Lincolnshire, – and immediately. He had no motive for remaining. It may be, indeed, that he had a strong motive for going away from the neighbourhood of Lawford Grange. There was a lurking danger in the close vicinage of that pleasant, old-fashioned country mansion, and the bright band of blue-eyed damsels who inhabited there.
"I will turn my back upon Lincolnshire for ever," Edward Arundel said to himself once more, upon his way homeward through the October twilight; "but before I go, the whole country shall know what I think of Paul Marchmont."
He clenched his fists and ground his teeth involuntarily as he thought this.
It was quite dark when he let himself in at the old-fashioned half-glass door that led into his humble sitting-room at Kemberling Retreat. He looked round the little chamber, which had been furnished forty years before by the proprietor of the cottage, and had served for one tenant after another, until it seemed as if the spindle-legged chairs and tables had grown attenuated and shadowy by much service. He looked at the simple room, lighted by a bright fire and a pair of wax-candles in antique silver candlesticks. The red firelight flickered and trembled upon the painted roses on the walls, on the obsolete engravings in clumsy frames of imitation-ebony and tarnished gilt. A silver tea-service and a Sèvres china cup and saucer, which Mrs. Arundel had sent to the cottage for her son's use, stood upon the small oval table: and a brown setter, a favourite of the young man's, lay upon the hearth-rug, with his chin upon his outstretched paws, blinking at the blaze.
As Mr. Arundel lingered in the doorway, looking at these things, an image rose before him, as vivid and distinct as any apparition of Professor Pepper's manufacture; and he thought of what that commonplace cottage-chamber might have been if his young wife had lived. He could fancy her bending over the low silver teapot, – the sprawling inartistic teapot, that stood upon quaint knobs like gouty feet, and had been long ago banished from the Dangerfield breakfast-table as utterly rococo and ridiculous. He conjured up the dear dead face, with faint blushes flickering amidst its lily pallor, and soft hazel eyes looking up at him through the misty steam of the tea-table, innocent and virginal as the eyes of that mythic nymph who was wont to appear to the old Roman king. How happy she would have been! How willing to give up fortune and station, and to have lived for ever and ever in that queer old cottage, ministering to him and loving him!
Presently the face changed. The hazel-brown hair was suddenly lit up with a glitter of barbaric gold; the hazel eyes grew blue and bright; and the cheeks blushed rosy red. The young man frowned at this new and brighter vision; but he contemplated it gravely for some moments, and then breathed a long sigh, which was somehow or other expressive of relief.
"No," he said to himself, "I am not false to my poor lost girl; I donot forget her. Her image is dearer to me than any living creature. The mournful shadow of her face is more precious to me than the brightest reality."
He sat down in one of the spindle-legged arm-chairs, and poured out a cup of tea. He drank it slowly, brooding over the fire as he sipped the innocuous beverage, and did not deign to notice the caresses of the brown setter, who laid his cold wet nose in his master's hand, and performed a species of spirit-rapping upon the carpet with his tail.
After tea the young man rang the bell, which was answered by Mr. Morrison.
"Have I any clothes that I can hunt in, Morrison?" Mr. Arundel asked.
His factotum stared aghast at this question.
"You ain't a-goin' to 'unt, are you, Mr. Edward?" he inquired, anxiously.
"Never mind that. I asked you a question about my clothes, and I want a straightforward answer."
"But, Mr. Edward," remonstrated the old servant, "I don't mean no offence; and the 'orses is very tidy animals in their way; but if you're thinkin' of goin' across country, – and a pretty stiffish country too, as I've heard, in the way of bulfinches and timber, – neither of them 'orses has any more of a 'unter in him than I have."
"I know that as well as you do," Edward Arundel answered coolly; "but I am going to the meet at Marchmont Towers to-morrow morning, and I want you to look me out a decent suit of clothes – that's all. You can have Desperado saddled ready for me a little after eleven o'clock."
Mr. Morrison looked even more astonished than before. He knew his master's savage enmity towards Paul Marchmont; and yet that very master now deliberately talked of joining in an assembly which was to gather together for the special purpose of doing the same Paul Marchmont honour. However, as he afterwards remarked to the two fellow-servants with whom he sometimes condescended to be familiar, it wasn't his place to interfere or to ask any questions, and he had held his tongue accordingly.
