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                            THE SORCERESS.




                            THE SORCERESS.

                               A Novel.

                                  BY

                            MRS. OLIPHANT,

                               AUTHOR OF

                   “THE CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,”
                       “THE CUCKOO IN THE NEST,”
                              ETC., ETC.

                          _IN THREE VOLUMES._

                               VOL. II.

                                LONDON:

                          F. V. WHITE & Co.,
                 31, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.

                                 1893.

                        [_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_]

                              PRINTED BY
                      TILLOTSON AND SON, BOLTON,
                     LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BERLIN.




                            THE SORCERESS.




CHAPTER I.


IT was perhaps a very good thing for Bee at this distracting and
distracted moment of her life, that her mother’s illness came in to fill
up every thought. Her own little fabric of happiness crumbled down about
her ears like a house of cards, only as it was far more deeply founded
and strongly built, the downfall was with a rumbling that shook the
earth and a dust that rose up to the skies. Heaven was blurred out to
her by the rising clouds, and all the earth was full of the noise, like
an earthquake, of the falling walls. She could not get that sound out of
her ears even in Mrs. Kingsward’s sick room, where the quiet was
preternatural, and everybody spoke in the lowest tone, and every step
was hushed. Even then it went on roaring, the stones and the rafters
flying, the storms of dust and ruin blackening the air, so that Bee
could not but wonder that nobody saw them, that the atmosphere was not
thick and stifling with those _debris_ that were continually falling
about her own ears. For everything was coming down; not only the idol
and the shrine he abode in, but heaven and earth, in which she felt that
no truth, no faith, could dwell any longer. Who was there to believe in?
Not any man if not Aubrey; not any goodness, any truth, if not his--not
anything! For it was without object, without warning, for nothing at
all, that he had deserted her, as if it had been of no importance: with
the ink not dry on his letter, with her name still upon his lips. A
great infidelity, like a great faith, is always something. It is tragic,
one of the awful events of life in which there is, or may be, fate; an
evil destiny, a terrible chastisement prepared beforehand. In such a
case one can at least feel one’s self only a great victim, injured by
God himself and the laws of the universe, though that was not the common
fashion of thought then, as it is now-a-days. But Bee’s downfall did not
mean so much as that it was not intended by anyone--not even by the
chief worker in it. He had meant to hold Bee fast with one hand while he
amused himself with the other. Amused himself--oh, heaven! Bee’s heart
seemed to contract with a speechless spasm of anguish and rage. That she
should be of no more account than that! Played with as if she were
nobody--the slight creature of a moment. She, Bee! She, Colonel
Kingsward’s daughter!

At first the poor girl went on in a mist of self-absorption, through
which everything else pierced but dully, wrapped up and hidden in it as
in the storm which would have arisen had the house actually fallen about
her ears, perceiving her mother through it, and the doctor, and all the
accessories of the scene--but dimly, not as if they were real. When,
however, there began to penetrate through this, strange words, with
strange meanings in them: “Danger”--danger to whom?--“Strength
failing”--but whose strength?--a dull wonder came in, bringing her back
to other thoughts. By-and-by, Bee began to understand a little that it
was of her mother of whom these things were being said. Her mother? But
it was not her mother’s house that had fallen; what did it mean? The
doctor talked apart with Moulsey, and Moulsey turned her back, and her
shoulders heaved, and her apron seemed to be put to her eyes. Bee, in
her dream said, half aloud, “Danger?” and both the doctor and Moulsey
turned upon her as if they would have killed her. Then she was beckoned
out of the room, and found herself standing face to face with that grave
yet kindly countenance which she had known all her life, in which she
believed as in the greatest authority. She heard his voice speaking to
her through all the rumbling and downfall.

“You must be very courageous,” it said, “You are the eldest, and till
your father comes home----”

What did it matter about her father coming home, or about her being the
eldest? What had all these things to do with the earthquake, with the
failure of truth, and meaning, and everything in life? She looked at him
blankly, wondering if it were possible that he did not hear the sound of
the great falling, the rending of the walls, and the tearing of the
roof, and the choking dust that filled all earth and heaven.

“My dear Beatrice,” he said, for he had known her all his life, “you
don’t understand me, do you, my poor child?”

Bee shook her head, looking at him wistfully. Could he know anything
more about it, she wondered--anything that had still to be said?

He took her hand, and her poor little hand was very cold with emotion
and trouble. The good doctor, who knew nothing about any individual
cause little Bee could have for agitation, thought he saw that her very
being was arrested by a terror which as yet her intelligence had not
grasped; something dreadful in the air which she did not understand. He
drew her into the dining-room, the door of which stood open, and poured
out a little wine for her. “Now, Bee,” he said, “no fainting, no
weakness. You must prove what is in you now. It is a dreadful trial for
you, my dear, but you can do a great deal for your dear mother’s sake,
as she would for yours.”

“I have never said it was a trial,” cried Bee, with a gasp. “Why do you
speak to me so? Has mamma told you? No one has anything to do with it
but me.”

He looked at her with great surprise, but the doctor was a man of too
much experience not to see that here was something into which it was
better not to inquire. He said, very quietly, “You, as the eldest, have
no doubt the chief part to play; but the little ones will all depend
upon your strength and courage. Your mother does not herself know. She
is very ill. It will require all that we can do--to pull her through.”

Bee repeated the last words after him with a scared look, but scarcely
any understanding in her face--“To pull her--through?”

“Don’t you understand me now? Your mother--has been ill for a long time.
Your father is aware of it. I suppose he thought you were too young to
be told. But now that he is absent, and your brother, I have no
alternative. Your mother is in great danger. I have telegraphed for
Colonel Kingsward, but in the meantime, Bee--child, don’t lose your
head! Do you understand me? She may be dying, and you are the only one
to stand by her, to give her courage.”

Bee did not look as if she had courage for anyone at that dreadful
moment. She fell a-trembling from head to foot and fell back against the
wall where she was standing. Her eyes grew large, staring at him yet
veiled as if they did not see--and she stammered forth at length,
“Mother, mother!” with almost no meaning, in the excess of misery and
surprise.

“Yes, your mother; whatever else you may have to think of, she is the
first consideration now.”

He went on speaking, but Bee did not hear him; everything floated around
her in a mist. The scenes at the Bath, the agitations, Mrs. Kingsward’s
sudden pallors and flushings, her pretence, which they all laughed at,
of not being able to walk; her laziness, lying on the sofa, the
giddiness when she made that one turn with Charlie, she who had always
been so fond of dancing; the hurry of bringing her to Kingswarden when
Bee had felt they would have been so much better in London, and her
strange, strange new fancy, mutely condemned by Bee, of finding the
children too much for her. Half of these things had been silently
remarked and disapproved of by the daughters. Mamma getting so
idle--self-indulgent almost, so unlike herself! Had they not been too
busily engaged in their own affairs, Bee