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Ebook has 875 lines and 59036 words, and 18 pages

WYLLARD'S WEIRD

WEDDING GARMENTS.

Hilda's presence at Penmorval was full of comfort and solace for Dora Wyllard. She had known Hilda all her life, had seen her grow from childhood to womanhood, had loved her with a sisterly love, trusting her as she trusted no one else. Hilda had been only a child at the time of Dora's engagement to Edward Heathcote; yet, even at eleven years of age, Hilda's tender heart had been full of sympathy for her brother when that engagement was broken off, and when Dora became the wife of another man. She had been angry, with vehement, childish anger. That Dora should like any man better than him who, in the fond eyes of the younger sister, seemed the prince and pattern of fine gentlemen, was an unpardonable offence.

Hilda at eleven was precocious in her knowledge of books, and very self-opinionated in her judgment of people. She told her brother she would never speak to Dora again, that she would run a mile to avoid even seeing her: and then, a few months after Dora's marriage, finding that her brother had forgiven that great wrong with all his heart, Hilda melted one day suddenly, at meeting Mrs. Wyllard on the moor, and fell into her old friend's arms.

"I have tried to hate you for being so wicked to my brother," she sobbed, as Dora bent over her and kissed her.

"Your brother forgave me ever so long ago, Hilda," said Dora. "Why should you be less generous than he?"

"Because I love him better than he loves himself," cried Hilda, in her vehement way; "because I know his value better than he does. O Dora, how could you like any one else better than Edward?"

"You must not ask me that, my darling. Those things cannot be explained. Fate willed it so."

"And I suppose you are very happy in your grand house?" said Hilda sullenly.

"I am very happy with the husband I love, Hilda. The grand house makes no difference. And now we are going to be good friends, aren't we, dear? and we are never going to talk of the past. How you have grown, Hilda!"

"Out of all my frocks," answered Hilda, glancing contemptuously at her ankles. "It is perfectly degrading never to have a frock long enough for one--and never to have one's waist in the right place. The dressmaker says I have no waist yet. Dressmakers are so insulting to girls of my age. I think I shall positively trample upon my dressmaker when I am grown up, to revenge myself for all I have suffered from the tribe."

"My Hilda, what an old-fashioned puss you have grown!"

"How can I help being old-fashioned? I never see any young people. Edward never comes to The Spaniards now. You have driven him away."

"Hilda, if we are to be friends--"

"Well, I won't say it again; but you have, you know. It is awfully dull at home. I suppose I may say that?"

"I hear you have a new governess. I hope you like her?"

"You needn't hope that, for you know girls never do. She is a poor sheep of a thing, and I don't suppose I hate her quite so much as some girls hate their governesses. But she is dreadfully dreary. She makes her own gowns; and of an evening her needle goes stitch, stitch, stitch, in time to the ticking of the clock, while I practise my scales. I don't know which I hate most, the clock, or the piano, or the needle."

"Poor Hilda, you must spend half your time with me in future. I shall call to-morrow, and ask your father's permission to have you at Penmorval as often as I like."

"Let us hope that he will be reasonable," said Dora, smiling, "even though he is a father."

Mrs. Wyllard called at The Spaniards next day, and was not too graciously received by Mr. Heathcote--old Squire Heathcote, as he was called in that part of the world. He was a testy invalid, a sufferer from some chronic complaint which was so obscure in its complications as to seem only an excuse for ill-temper, and he had not forgiven Dora for jilting his son. He softened gradually, however, melted by the sweetness of her manner, and by memories of days that were gone, when he had admired her mother, and had been ruthlessly cut out by her father. The eyes that looked at him seemed to be the eyes that he had loved in his youth.

"If you care to be troubled with the girl, I ought to be grateful for any kindness you may show her," said the Squire. "She makes more noise than a regiment, and she is always disobeying her governess, or neglecting her lessons; and then I am called upon to interfere. I wouldn't mind if they would fight it out between them, and leave me in peace."

"You shall be left in peace very often, if you will allow me to have Hilda for my little companion at Penmorval," said Dora. "And I promise you that her education shall not be altogether neglected while she is with me."

"If you can teach her manners, I shall be eternally your debtor," said the Squire. "I would much rather a young woman should know how to behave herself in society than that she should be able to read AEschylus or take a degree in mathematics."

Thus it came about that Hilda spent a great deal of her life at Penmorval, where the sheep-like governess escorted her, or whence she fetched her with unfailing patience, grateful exceedingly when she was rewarded with a cup of tea in Mrs. Wyllard's pretty drawing-room, or in the yew-tree arbour.

And thus in the seven happy years of Dora Wyllard's married life--her apprenticeship, as she had called it playfully last June, when the anniversary of her marriage came round--Hilda had been her chief companion. The girl had grown up at the young matron's side as a younger sister, and had been a link between Dora and Edward, albeit these two saw each other but seldom, for Edward's home had been in the neighbourhood of Plymouth until within the last two years.

Edward's rule was almost as kind, but not quite so easy. He had narrower ideas about the rights of young ladies, especially in relation to the hunting-field.

"When I hunt you can go with me," he said, "but I will not have you flourishing about the country with no one but a groom to look after you;" and this narrower rule deprived Hilda of many a day's sport. Courtenay, the elder brother, had never missed a day with fox-hounds or harriers, and he had allowed his sister the run of his stables, and much latitude in all things.

While Hilda was growing up under Dora Wyllard's wing, while Edward Heathcote changed from bachelor to married man, and then to widower, Bothwell Grahame was serving his Queen and his country in the far East. He could just remember having seen Hilda now and again as a child. He came back to Cornwall to find her a woman, or a girl on the verge of womanhood; and it was not long before he grew to believe in her as the very perfection of girlhood and womanhood in one--girlhood when she was gay, and in her more serious moods altogether womanly.

In these darker days, under that heavy cloud which had fallen upon Dora Wyllard's life, Hilda's presence was an inestimable blessing. Dora was able to put aside the thought of her own great sorrow every now and then, while she entered with all her heart into the life of her young friend--this fresh young life, so full of hope in the future, of earnest purpose and sweet humility. If a king had stooped from his throne to woo her, Hilda could not have been prouder of her royal lover than she was of Bothwell. She spoke of him as of one who honoured her by his affection, and she seemed full of fearfulness lest she should not be good enough for her hero. It never occurred to her that it was Bothwell who ought to be thankful, that it was he who had won the prize.

There was a sweet self-abnegation in this girlish love which touched Dora deeply, she being all unconscious of her unselfish worship of her husband, her own surrender to the lover who stole her from her betrothed.

Hilda was very fearful of intruding her new joys and hopes upon her friend's sorrow.

"I ought not to chatter about our prospects, Dora; when you are so weighed down with care," she said apologetically.

But Dora insisted upon hearing all about the new home which was to be made out of the old cottage. She insisted upon discussing the trousseau and the linen-closet, glass and china, and even hardware; albeit her own lines had fallen in a mansion where all these things were provided on a lavish scale, and left to the care of a housekeeper, to be destroyed and renewed periodically, for the benefit of old-established tradesmen.

"You never had a linen-closet to look after, Dora," said Hilda, pitying her friend. "That is the worst of being so rich. There is no individuality in your home-life. I mean to be a regular Dutch housewife, and to keep count of every table-cloth in my stock. I shall make and mark and mend all the house-linen; and I shall be much prouder of my linen-closet than of my gowns and bonnets. And the china-closet, Dora, ought not that to be lovely? One can get such delicious glass and china nowadays for so little money. I have looked at the Plymouth china-shops, and longed to buy the things, before I was engaged; and now I can buy all the glass and china for our house--I have saved enough money out of my allowance to pay for all we want in that way."

"What an independent young person you are, Hilda!" said her friend, laughing at her; "but you must not spend all your money on cups and saucers--"

"And teapots!" interjected Hilda--"such sweet little china teapots. I will have one for every day in the week."

"Teapots are all very well; but you will have your trousseau to buy. You must keep some of your money for frocks."

"I have no end of frocks; more than enough," protested Hilda. "I shall buy just two new gowns--my wedding-gown, and a tailor gown for riding outside coaches in the honeymoon. Bothwell proposes that we should go round the south coast as far as the Start, and then across country to Hartland, and home by Bude. That is to be our honeymoon tour."

"Very nice, and very inexpensive, dearest. And then you are to come here to live till your new home is ready?"

"I am afraid we shall be very much in your way."

"You will be a comfort to me, Hilda; both you and Bothwell will be a help and comfort to me."

Hilda spent her evenings for the most part in the invalid's room. Her sympathetic nature made it easy for her to adapt herself to the necessities of a sick-room. She could be very quiet, and yet she could be bright and gay. She could be cheerful without being noisy. She sang with exquisite taste, and sang the songs which are delightful to all hearers--songs that appeal to the heart and soothe the senses.

Julian Wyllard was particularly fond of her German ballads--Schubert, Mendelssohn, Jensen, old Volks-Lieder; but once when she began a little French song, "Si tu savais," he stopped her with a painful motion of his distorted hand.

"Not that, Hilda. I detest that song;" and for the first time Hilda doubted the excellence of his judgment.

"I wonder you dislike it," she began.

"O, the thing is pretty enough; but it has been so vulgarised. All the organs were grinding it when I lived in Paris."

"And those organs disturbed you at your work sometimes, perhaps," said Dora, seated in her accustomed place beside his pillow, ready to adjust his reading-lamp, to give him a new book, or to discuss any passage he showed her. He read immensely in those long hours of enforced captivity, but his reading had been chiefly on one particular line. He was reading the metaphysicians, from Plato and Aristotle to Schopenhauer and Hartmann; trying to find comfort for the anguish of his own individual position in the universal despondency of modern metaphysics.

"A man chained to a sick-bed ought to be able to console himself with the notion that the great world around him is only an idea of his own brain; and yet even when convinced of the unreality of all things, there remains this one central point in the universe, the sense of personal pain. Such a belief might reconcile the sufferer to the idea of suicide, but hardly to the idea of existence. Ah, my Dora, if you are only a phantasm, you are the sweetest ghost that ever a man's brain invented to haunt and bless his life."

"Don't you think you might read more interesting books while you are ill, Julian?" suggested his wife.

"No, dear. These books are best, for they set me thinking upon abstract questions, and hinder me from brooding upon my own misery."

What could Dora say to him by way of comfort, knowing too well that this misery of his was without hope on earth; knowing that this burden of pain which had fallen upon him must be carried to the very end; that day by day and hour by hour the gradual progress of decay must go on; no pause, no respite; decay so slow as to be almost imperceptible, save on looking back at what had been?

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