She had nothing now to do, and nobody
to speak to; though her father did his utmost, in
his kind and clumsy way, to draw his darling close
to him. But she knew that all along he had disliked
her idol, and she fancied, now and then, that this
dislike had had something perhaps to do with what
had befallen her. This, of course, was wrong on
her part. But when youth and faith are wronged,
the hurt is very apt to fly to all the tender places.
Even the weather also seemed to have taken a turn against
her. No wholesome frost set in to brace the slackened
joints and make her walk until she began to tingle;
neither was there any snow to spread a new cast on
the rocks and gift the trees with airiness; nor even
what mild winters, for the most part, bring in counterpoise soft,
obedient skies, and trembling pleasure of the air
and earth. But as over her own love over
all the country hung just enough of mist and chill
to shut out cheerful prospect, and not enough to shut
folk in to the hearth of their own comfort.
In her dull, forlorn condition, Frida
still, through force of habit or the love of solitude,
made her daily round of wood and rock, seashore and
moorland. Things seemed to come across her now,
instead of her going to them, and her spirit failed
at every rise of the hilly road against her.
In that dreary way she lingered, hoping nothing, fearing
nothing, showing neither sigh nor tear, only seeking
to go somewhere and be lost from self and sorrow in
the cloudy and dark day.
Often thus the soft, low moaning of
the sea encompassed her, where she stood, in forgotten
beauty, careless of the wind and wave. The short,
uneasy heave of waters in among the kelpy rocks, flowing
from no swell or furrow on the misty glass of sea,
but like a pulse of discontent, and longing to go
further; after the turn, the little rattle of invaded
pebbles, the lithe relapse and soft, shampooing
lambency of oarweed, then the lavered boulders pouring
gritty runnels back again, and every basined outlet
wavering toward another inlet; these, and every phase
of each innumerable to-and-fro, made or met their impress
in her fluctuating misery.
“It is the only rest,”
she said; “the only chance of being quiet, after
all that I have done, and all that people say of me.”
None had been dastard enough to say
a syllable against her; neither had she, in the warmest
faith of love, forgotten truth; but her own dejection
drove her, not to revile the world (as sour natures
do consistently), but to shrink from sight, and fancy
that the world was reviling her.
While she fluttered thus and hovered
over the cold verge of death, with her sore distempered
spirit, scarcely sure of anything, tidings came of
another trouble, and turned the scale against her.
Albert de Wichehalse, her trusty cousin and true lover,
had fallen in a duel with that recreant and miscreant
Lord Auberley. The strictest orders were given
that this should be kept for the present from Frida’s
ears; but what is the use of the strictest orders
when a widowed mother raves? Albert’s mother
vowed that “the shameless jilt” should
hear it out, and slipped her guards and waylaid Frida
on the morn of Candlemas, and overbore her with such
words as may be well imagined.
“Auntie!” said the poor
thing at last, shaking her beautiful curls, and laying
one little hand to her empty heart, “don’t
be cross with me to-day. I am going home to be
married, auntie. It is the day my Aubyn always
fixed, and he never fails me.”
“Little fool!” her aunt
exclaimed, as Frida kissed her hand and courtesied,
and ran round the corner; “one comfort is to
know that she is as mad as a mole, at any rate.”