The interference of Emmeline at length succeeded in restoring peace, but Lord Delmont's eyes had been rudely opened, and, as is unhappily too often the case with those weak characters where over-indulgence of childhood, has occasioned those annoyances of ungoverned youth, he became irritable and sometimes even harsh with Eleanor, which conduct threw her still more with Lady Lascelles. As to joining society with Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, when they were in London, Eleanor would not hear of it. But to her sister's great joy, and some surprise, she accepted an invitation to Oakwood a short time after little Percy's birth; and, still more surprising, condescended to make herself agreeable. The London season had tired her, and she thought she might just as well be dull on the banks of the Dart in August and September as in some stupid watering-place. Mr. Hamilton, despite her dislike, which she cared not to avow, she found could be at least very entertaining; her father was more like his former self, her sister far more delightful and lovely than she ever thought she could be, and her nephew certainly a pretty little plague. Then Mr. Hamilton had a beautiful horse entirely for her use, and she rode exceedingly well, and was greatly admired. She was seized with an exploring mania, and dragged Emmeline to every old ruin and dark wood within ten miles of Oakwood. Altogether the impression she left behind her, after a two months' visit, was such as to ease Mrs. Hamilton's great anxiety, more especially as it appeared from certain private conversations, that her affections were for the first time really engaged, and Emmeline had always fondly hoped that when that should be the case, Eleanor would become a very different person. Alas! penetrative as she was, she had not yet learned her sister's character; simply because utter heartlessness in any woman she could not comprehend.
Her visit to her father in London, in the winter, removed all their rising hopes, and caused such increased and intense anxiety, as so to injure her already delicate health that her husband bore her back to Oakwood a full month before they had originally intended. Whether or not Eleanor loved Lord Fitzclair, it was impossible to determine; but that he devotedly, passionately loved her, was only too evident, not only to the world, but to herself; and this once confirmed, she left no method untried to torment, and so, as she declared, to try if his affections were worth having. He was half an Italian, and had inherited all the strong, fierce passions of that country, without one atom of self-control. Mr. Hamilton knew him well, far better than he knew himself, and conjured him to withdraw from the society of one who could never make him happy, and whose capricious conduct was so likely to render him desperate and miserable: he reasoned, entreated in vain. "She only wants to try the strength of my love," was his sole reply; "and were she to torment health and life away, it will never change she will be mine yet."
And to the astonishment of Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, two months afterward he proposed in form, and actually was accepted, with the sole condition that their engagement should be kept secret till it should please Eleanor to name the wedding day, which could not be at least for six or eight months.
This engagement might have eased anxiety, but the condition increased it, especially, as instead of coming to Oakwood, as Emmeline had asked and hoped, the latter part of the summer and autumn was to be spent in Cheltenham with a very gay party, in which Eleanor was still of course the star. Mrs. Hamilton entered the nursery one morning earlier than usual, for her infant had not been well the night before, and she had already experienced the care as well as the joy of a mother. Her babe was better, and as he lay smilingly and happily in her lap, and watched the eager movements of his brother, she was only sensible of pleasure. The nurse had arranged the chairs in a long line, that Master Percy might, with their help, walk the whole length of the large and airy room. The feat mightily pleased the little gentleman, who, having acquired the venerable age of fifteen months, liked better to feel his feet than crawl on the floor, or be carried about on any limbs but his own. Every two or three paces he stood nearly alone, and burst into a loud merry laugh, which was always echoed by a crow of joy from his little brother.
"Take care, Percy, love, don't fall and frighten mamma," said his young mother, who was watching him with such pleasure as to send for his father to share it. When her son, to prove how well he obeyed her commands to take care, stood for a second without any support, and then ran quite alone across the room, and with a yet louder laugh hid his rosy face in her lap. Mrs. Hamilton fondly kissed the little nestling head, and at that moment her husband entered the room. "Dearest Arthur," she eagerly exclaimed, "I was actually foolish enough to send for you. Herbert seems quite well; I was, it seems, needlessly alarmed, and Percy has this moment " She stopped in sudden terror, for there was an expression on her husband's countenance of such unusual agitation, that though he tried to smile when he heard her words, she could not conquer her alarm, more than to say, in a caressing voice to her little boy
"Will not Percy run to papa, and ask him why he looks so sad?"
The child looked up in her face, and then, as his father held out his arms to him, let go his mother's dress, and obeyed her. Mr. Hamilton caught him to his heart, held him for above a minute, kissed him fondly, and left the nursery without uttering a single word.
"Let me take Master Herbert, ma'am," said the head nurse respectfully, for she saw that her mistress's unexpressed alarm had nearly overpowered her; and in a few minutes Emmeline was with her husband, whose agitation was so excessive, that even his wife's presence, for the moment, had scarcely power to calm him.
The tale was soon told. Eleanor's conduct since her engagement had been such as to excite the displeasure, not of her father alone, but actually of the marchioness; who, though a weak and worldly woman, had yet some idea of propriety. As a near relation of Lord Delmont, Eleanor's engagement with Lord Fitzclair was of course told to her, and again and again she warned her that she was going too far, and might lose her lover before she was aware of it; but Eleanor only laughed at her, and at last won her over to the belief that it was certainly better to cure Fitzclair of his jealous tendency before marriage than afterward. Lord Delmont's reproofs she was wont to silence, by invariably making them the signal of mortifying and annoying Lord Fitzclair still more than usual. Yet still at times she relented, and so strengthened the love she had excited, so enhanced her own fascinations, that all the agony he had endured and was still, he knew, to endure, by an incomprehensible contradiction, riveted her power and hastened his own doom. Weak in all things but his love, he could not demand as his actual right the publication of their engagement. Eleanor vowed if he did till she permitted him, she would have nothing more to say to him. She knew, though she did not say it, that once made known, a chain would be thrown round her actions, which she did not choose to endure. And father, lover, and friend, all feeling she was wrong, and the first and last repeatedly telling her so, had yet neither of them the resolution to contend with her, and compel the proper course.
A month of their visit to Cheltenham so passed, when Eleanor's attention was arrested by a new actor on the scene. She had begun to tire of her present satellites, and a young military captain, whose furlough from India had just expired, and whose pale face, somewhat melancholy expression, and very elegant figure, presented a new subject for conquest impossible to be resisted; and it was unhappily, only too easily achieved. She made no secret of her admiration, speaking of him in such terms to her intended husband as to excite anew every jealous feeling. It was easy for Captain Fortescue to discover Fitzclair was his rival; but believing himself decidedly the object of Eleanor's preference, he increased his attentions, little imagining the storm he was exciting, the more fearful from its determined suppression. Lord Delmont interfered several times, not only by reproaches to Eleanor, but by determined coldness to her new suitor. Finding at length that her encouragement actually neared a criminal extent, and after a desperately stormy interview, he solemnly declared that if she did not dismiss Captain Fortescue at once, he would shame her in the face of the whole world, by proclaiming her engagement with the young marquis. Eleanor in equal anger, declared that if he threatened, so too could she; and if he tormented her any more she would prevent all publication of her engagement, by herself snapping it asunder, and pledging her faith to Captain Fortescue. This was too much even for Lord Delmont. Declaring if she did so, a father's heaviest malediction should fall on her head, he hastily left her; and Eleanor very composedly went to prepare for an excursion on horseback with Fortescue, Fitzclair and others.