Part 30 (2/2)
”Long may she remain so,” returned I; ”and now I am happy to say there are some of the towers of Cambridge visible, for, like you, I am becoming fearfully hungry.”
”And for the first time during the last twenty-four hours I am actually beginning to feel as tired as a dog,” rejoined Harry, shrugging his shoulders with an air of intense satisfaction.-198--
CHAPTER XXV -- THE CHALLENGE
”Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw; but this intrusion shall, Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall.”
”More matter for a May morning.”
”Here's the challenge, read it.”
”If this letter move him not, his legs cannot.”
”Ominous! he comes to kill my heart.”
--_Shakspeare_.
OLD MAURICE, the pastry-cook, had welcomed his daughter gladly, as one returned from the grave, and had learned from her own lips, with mingled tears of joy and grat.i.tude, how, thanks to n.o.ble Harry Oaklands, she had escaped unscathed from the perils and temptations to which she had been exposed; many days had elapsed, the Long Vacation had commenced, and the ancient town of Cambridge, no longer animated by the countless throngs of gownsmen, frowned in its unaccustomed solitude, like some City of the Dead, and still no hostile message came from Wilford. Various reports were circulated concerning the reappearance of Lizzie Maurice; but none of them bore the faintest resemblance to the truth, and to no one had the possibility of Oaklands' interference in the matter occurred, save, as it afterwards appeared, to Charles Archer.
For above a week Wilford was confined to his room, seeing only Wentworth; and it was given out that he had met with a severe fall from his horse, and was ordered to keep perfectly quiet. At the expiration of that period he quitted Cambridge suddenly, leaving no clue to his whereabouts. This strange conduct scarcely excited any surprise amongst the set he moved in, as it was usually his habit to shroud all his proceedings under a veil of secrecy, a.s.sumed, as some imagined, for the purpose of enhancing the mysterious and unaccountable influence he delighted to exercise over the minds of men.
Oaklands remained a few days at Cambridge after Wilford's departure, as he said, to pack up, but, as I felt certain, to prevent the possibility of Wilford's imagining that he was anxious in any way to avoid him.
Finding at length that his rooms were dismantled, and that he would not in all probability return till the end of the Long Vacation, Harry ceased to trouble his head any further about the matter, and we set off for Heathfield, accompanied by Archer, whom Harry had invited to pay him a visit.
We found all well at our respective homes; my mother appeared much stronger, and was actually growing quite stout, for her; and f.a.n.n.y looked so pretty, that I was not surprised at the very particular attentions paid her from the first moment of his introduction by the volatile Archer (who, by the way, was a regular male flirt), attentions which I was pleased to perceive she appreciated exactly at their proper value. We soon fell into our old habits again, Oaklands and Archer setting out after breakfast for a stroll, or on a fis.h.i.+ng expedition, which usually ended in Harry's coming to an anchor under some spreading oak or beech, where he remained, ”doing a bit of the _dolce_,” as Archer called it, till luncheon time; whilst I, who could not afford to be idle, read hard till about three o'clock, and then joined in whatever amus.e.m.e.nt was the order of the day.
”Frank, may I come in?” exclaimed f.a.n.n.y's silvery voice outside my study door, one morning during my working hours when I had been at home about a fortnight.
”To be sure you may, you little torment,” replied I; ”are you coming to learn mathematics, or to teach me crochet? for I see you are armed with that vicious little hook with which you delight to torture the wool of innocent lambs into strange shapes, for the purpose of providing your friends with innumerable small anomalous absurdities, which they had much rather be without.”
”No such thing, Mr. Impudence, I never make any article which is not particularly useful as well as ornamental. But, Frank, dear,” she continued, ”I should not have interrupted you, only I wanted to tell you something--it may be nothing to signify, and yet I cannot help feeling alarmed about it.”
”What is it, darling?” said I, putting my arm round her taper little waist, and drawing her towards me.
”Why, Mr. Oaklands has been here this morning; he came to bring mamma a message from Sir John, inviting us all to dine with him to-morrow.”
”Nothing very alarming so far,” observed I; ”go on.”
”Mamma said we should be extremely happy to do so, and quitted the room to find a recipe she had promised to the housekeeper at the Hall.”
-200--”And you were left alone with Harry--that was alarming certainly,”
said I.
”Nonsense,” returned f.a.n.n.y, while a very becoming blush glowed on her cheek; ”how you do interrupt me! Mr. Oaklands had kindly offered to explain a difficult pa.s.sage in Dante for me, and I was standing on a chair to get down the book--”
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