

E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Paula Franzini, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)



Note: Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      http://archive.org/details/mildredarkellnov02woo





MILDRED ARKELL.

A Novel.

by

MRS. HENRY WOOD,

Author of
"East Lynne," "Lord Oakburn's Daughters," "Trevlyn Hold,"
etc. etc.

In Three Volumes.

VOL. II.







London:
Tinsley Brothers, Catherine Street, Strand.
1865.
All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved.

London:
Savill and Edwards, Printers, Chandos-Street,
Covent-Garden.




CONTENTS.


  CHAP.                                            PAGE

     I. THE SCHOOL-BOY'S LOVE                         1
    II. THE TOUR OF DAVID DUNDYKE, ESQUIRE           20
   III. A MEETING AT GRENOBLE                        37
    IV. A MYSTERY                                    65
     V. HOME IN DESPAIR                              87
    VI. NEWS FOR WESTERBURY                         102
   VII. ROBERT CARR'S VISIT                         118
  VIII. GOING OVER TO SQUIRE CARR'S                 137
    IX. A STARTLED LUNCHEON-TABLE                   153
     X. A MISSIVE FOR SQUIRE CARR                   175
    XI. THE LAST OF ROBERT CARR                     191
   XII. MR. RICHARDS' MORNING CALL                  214
  XIII. A DISLIKE THAT WAS TO BEAR ITS FRUITS       230
   XIV. THE EXAMINATION                             251
    XV. A NIGHT WITH THE GHOSTS                     272
   XVI. PERPLEXITY                                  294
  XVII. A SHADOW OF THE FUTURE                      315




MILDRED ARKELL.




CHAPTER I.

THE SCHOOL-BOY'S LOVE.


A brilliant evening in July. The sun had been blazing all day with
intense force, glittering on the white pavement of the streets,
scorching the dry and thirsty earth; and it was not until his beams
shone from the very verge of the horizon that the gay butterflies of
humanity ventured to come forth.

Groups were wending their way to the Bishop's Garden: not the private
garden of the respected prelate who reigned over the diocese of
Westerbury, but a semi-public garden-promenade called by that name. In
the years long gone by, a bishop of Westerbury caused a piece of waste
land belonging to the grounds of his palace to be laid out as an
ornamental garden. Broad sunny walks for the cold of winter, shady
winding ones for the heat of summer, shrubberies and trees, flower-beds
and grass-plots, miniature rocks and a fountain, were severally formed
there; and then the bishop threw it open to the public, and it had ever
since gone by the name of the Bishop's Garden. Not to the public
indiscriminately--only to those of superior degree; the catering for the
recreation of the public indiscriminately had not come into fashion
then. It had always lain especially under the patronage of the residents
of the grounds, and they took care--or the Cerberus of a gatekeeper did
for them--that no inferior person should dare venture within yards of
it: a tradesman might not so much as put his nose through the iron
railings to take a peep in.

The garden was getting full when a college boy--he might be known by his
trencher--passed the gate with a slow step. A party had just gone in
whose movements his eyes had eagerly followed, but he was not near
enough to speak. As he looked after them wistfully, his eye caught
something glittering on the ground, and he stooped and picked it up. It
was a small locket of gold, bearing the initials "G. B."

He knew to whom it belonged. He would have given half his remaining
life, as it seemed, to go in and restore it to its owner. But that might
not be; for the college boys, whether king's scholars or private pupils,
were rigorously excluded by custom from the Bishop's Garden. And
Williams, the gatekeeper, was stealing up then.

He was tall of his age, looking about sixteen, though he was not quite
so much; tall enough to lean over the iron railings, which he did with
intense eagerness; and never did woman's face betray more beauty,
whether of form or colouring, than did his.

It was Henry Arkell. For the years have gone on, and the lovely boy of
ten or eleven, has grown into this handsome youth. Other people and
other things have grown with him.

"Now then! What be you doing here? You just please to take yourself off,
young gentleman."

He quitted the railings in obedience; the college boys never thought of
disputing the orders of the gatekeeper. Stepping backwards with a sort
of spring, he stepped upon the foot of some one who was approaching the
gate.

"Take care, Arkell."

He turned hastily and raised his trencher. The speaker was the
good-natured Bishop of Westerbury; his widowed daughter on his arm.

"I beg your lordship's pardon."

"Too intent to see me, eh! You were gazing into the garden as if you
longed to be there."

"I was looking for Miss Beauclerc, sir; I thought she might be coming
near the gate. I have just picked up this, which she must have dropped
going in."

"How do you know it is Miss Beauclerc's?" cried the bishop, glancing at
the gold locket.

"I know it's hers, sir; and her initials are on it." But Henry turned
his face out of sight, as he spoke. And lest any critic should set up a
cavil at the bishop being addressed as "sir," it may be as well to
mention that it was the custom with the college boys. Very few of them
could bring their shy lips to utter any other title.

"Go in and give it to Miss Beauclerc, if it is hers," cried the bishop.

"The gatekeeper will not let me," said Henry, with a smile. "He tells us
all that it is as much as his place is worth to admit a college boy."

"They ain't fit for such a place as this, nohow, my lord," spoke up the
keeper. "Once let 'em in, and they'd be for playing at hare and hounds
over the flower-beds."

"Nonsense!" said the bishop. "I don't see what harm there would be in
admitting the seniors. You need not be so over-strict, Williams. Come in
with me, Arkell, if you wish to find Miss Beauclerc; and come in
whenever you like. Do you hear, Williams, I give this young gentleman
the _entree_ of the garden."

The bishop laid his hand on Henry's shoulder, and they walked in
together, all three, his daughter on his other side. Many a surprised
eye-glass was lifted; many an indignant eye regarded them.

Never yet had a college boy--St. John always excepted--ventured within
the pale of that guarded place. And if the bishop and his daughter had
appeared accompanied by a fiery serpent, it could not have caused more
inward commotion. But nobody dared betray it: the bishop was the bishop,
and not to be interfered with.

"There's Miss Beauclerc, my lad."

And in a few minutes--Henry could not tell how, in his mind's tumultuous
confusion--Georgina Beauclerc had turned into a side walk with him, and
they were alone. Georgina was the same Georgina as ever--impulsive,
wilful, and daringly independent. Everybody paid court to the dean's
daughter.

"Did you drop this in coming in, Miss Beauclerc?"

"My locket! Of course I must have dropped it. Harry, I would not have
lost it for the world."

His sensitive cheek wore a crimson flush at the words. _He_ had given it
to her on her last birthday, when she was eighteen. As she took it from
him, their fingers touched. That touch thrilled through his veins, while
hers were unconscious, or at best heedless of the contact.

It was the not uncommon tale; the tale that has been enacted many times
in life, and which Lord Byron has made familiar to us as being his own
heart's history--

    "The maid was on the eve of womanhood:
    The boy had fewer summers; but his heart had far outgrown his years:
    And to his sight there was but one fair face on earth,
    And that was shining on him."

It has been intimated that Georgina Beauclerc had inherited the dean's
innate taste for what is called beauty, both human and statuesque. In
the dean it was very marked. This, it may have been, that first drew
forth her regard for Henry Arkell. Certain it was, she saw him
frequently, and took no pains to disguise her admiration. He was a great
favourite of the dean's--was often invited to the deanery. That he was
no common boy, in nature, mind, or form, was apparent to the dean, as it
was to many others, and Dr. Beauclerc evinced his regard openly.
Georgina did the same. At first she had merely liked to patronize the
young college boy; rather to domineer over him, looking upon him as a
child in comparison with herself. But as they grew older, the difference
in their years became less marked, and now they appeared nearly of the
same age, for he looked older than he was, and Georgina younger. She was
very pretty, with her large