The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 205: what you’re looking at

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196 motest hint to the effect that he would be gratified to receive a visit from herself and her husband: it did not even so much as intimate that if circum- stances should bring them near Liverpool, he hoped they would call upon him :—but this formal and purely business-like communication wound up by the announcement that when the young lady should reach the period of her majority, she must present herself to him in order to sign the necessary releases and receive the amount of her little for- tune. Happily enough passed away the two years of Louisa’s wedded life: for to two years was it limited !—and as is often the case in this world, the dream of felicity which is soonest to be dissi- pated is the brightest and most beautiful while it lasts. Mr. Rayner was drowned in a boating- excursion at some French seaport where they were staying at the time; and thus, with a cruel and terrible Sbruptness, the unfortunate Louisa found herself a widow. When the roseate atmosphere in which the soul has been for a period accustomed to exist, is thus suddenly changed into a worse than ian darkness, it appears to the sufferer as if this black obscurity would be eternal—and thet the mind, paralysed by dread consternation and crushed by overwhelming grief, could never by its own energies ish an issue thence. But there is no misfortune so terrible that the sense it produces will not gradually pass into a phase of resignation ; and then from resignation there is a natural transition to that improved and healthier state of feeling in which the mind to dis- cover that the world may yet have sources of hap- piness left for its experience. Two years had elapsed since the death of Mr. Rayner; and Louisa had put off her widow’s-weeds about a fortnight before the date on which we find her travelling in the society of Lettice Rodney. By a sotnewhat coincidence, too, she attained her majority on the very day when the period of her mourning expired. The reader may now easily surmise for what purpose she was bound to Liverpool :—it was to call upon her guardian Anthony Pollard, the miserly old lawyer, and re- ésive from him the amount of her fortune. Such was the narrative which Lettice Rodney learnt from Mrs. Rayner’s lips; and the young woman could not help secretly wishing that sho herself was on her way to receive three thousand pounds, instead of to carry out the deeply devised plot in respect to Eveleen O’Brien. “Your tale, Mrs. Rayner, hae deeply interested me,” said Lettioe. “ But do you not tremble at the thought of appearing in the presence of such a hard stern man as your guardian Mr. Pollard seems to be P”’ “I ean assure you, Miss Rodney,” replied the handsome widow, “that I experience no such tre- pidation. It is true that full ten years have now elapsed since I last beheld him: but my momory has faithfully retained the impression which Mr. Pollard made upon me at the time, during the few weeks I was beneath his roof. He is a man of the fewest possible words; and I am confident that he will not seek to engage me in any unnecessary dis- course. He will not speak of the past more than is absolutely requisite to the settlement of the business which is to bring us in contact. I there- fore entertain no apprehension that he wil] in any THE MYETERIES OF TITRE COURT. way revive the poignancy of my feelings on ao- count of the cruel and irreparable loss which I have sustained. Indeed, so far as I can exercies my judgment on tho subject, I have every rea- son to believe that oar interview will prove a brief one, and that within an hour from the moment of our meeting the business will be settled.” “I am truly glad,” observed Lettice, “to receive the assurance that you anticipate no manifestation of ill-feeling on Mr. Pollard’s part. Al we have known each other but a few short hours, I feel an interest in all that concerns you.” “And this interest, Miss Rodney, is recipro- cated,” rejoined Mrs. Rayner. The discourse continued awhile in a similar strain: but the reader will scarcely require to be informed that while Lettice expressed a feeling of interest more for the sake of saying than because she really experienced Seep for the purpose of making her companion belisve that she was a very right-minded young lady,— Mrs. Rayner’s assurances of kindly sympathies were, on the other hand, perfectly genuine and sincere. As the discourse continued, Mrs. Rayner was naturally led on to minuter details in respect to the past incidents of her life; and as Lettice could not bear to be silent or moreover, inasmuch as’ she was endowed with no small share of true feminine ourionty snes by her interjected observations, as well as by her questions, encouraged her compenion to as much communicativeness as she chose to demonstrate. Thus did the hours pase away, while the train was pursuing its course of almost marvellous rapidity ; and the two ladies mutually congratulated them- selves that they should thus have been thrown together. It was at some point—no matter precisely which—between Birmingham and Manchester, that the conversation was all in an instent cat short, as if a thunderbolt had come crashing through the roof of the carriage. As Lettice Rodney subsequently described the occurrence, she was for a moment—and only for that single mo- ment—eensitive to an abrupt shock: it was -quick as the eye can wink—and the next instant consciousness abandoned her. As she slowly came back to her senses, she became aware that she was lying on the slope of an embankment, and that some gentleman, of middle-age, was bending over her, and ministering restoratives. It appeared to her like a dream: she closed her eyes as if to shut out all external objects, the better to concentrate her mental vision inwardly, and thus arrive at some comprehending of what it was that she thought and felt. There was a dull heavy sound- ing in the brain—a sense of numbness over ail the faculties—-a blending of uncertainty and vague consternation in the mind. Again she opened her eyes—but only to receive additional confirmation of the awful suspicion which, hitherto dim, inde- finite, and clouded, had hung in ber brain. The gentleman spoke a few kind words of encouragement and inquiry ; and these still farther served to stamp the horrible conviction in the soul of Lettice that what she had fancied and ap- prehended was no dream, but all a too hideous reality. Ina word, an accident had happened to the train ;—several of the carriages, being thrown off the line, were literally dasbed to atoms; and © ¢ (COL (C DOO CS (COL