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Language: English
SINK OR SWIM?
A Novel.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
“RECOMMENDED TO MERCY,”
ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST. STRAND.
1868.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS,
PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAP. PAGE
I. What did Honor know? 1
II. The Colonel lays a Plot 16
III. Unstable as Water 23
IV. The Half-rebuke 41
V. “That was Honor’s Mother?” 57
VI. The Colonel gets his Quietus 69
VII. Was Honor glad or sorry? 80
VIII. John wishes the Past undone 88
IX. Honor finds a new Relation 94
X. A Grandmother’s Love 115
XI. Honor shows a liking for the “Bell” 122
XII. “There’s good, after all, in her” 130
XIII. Lady Mill has Business on hand 139
XIV. Honor feels like a “Lady” 151
XV. Colonel Norcott feels paternal 169
XVI. John decides against himself 178
XVII. Humble Love 193
XVIII. Disappointment 213
XIX. Le premier Pas 219
XX. Silent Sorrow 231
XXI. Honor deceives herself 238
XXII. The Turning of the Head 262
XXIII. The Rector commits himself 274
XXIV. Fast downhill 281
SINK OR SWIM?
CHAPTER I.
had been freely drunk, and when all around seemed dark and lifeless that
had not its root and being in the one fair woman that he loved.
The time, however, had not yet come when he could desire to confide in
mortal man or woman the soft secret of his passion. A very young man,
whose love is very fresh and real, cares little to discuss with another the
delicate question of
“Whether his love loves him or no—
Whether his love loves him.”
The mere sentiment of his adoration is sufficient for him when devotion
alone, without any admixture of vanity, stirs the bright flame within. So
Arthur Vavasour turned a deaf ear to the Colonel’s libertine allusions. To
him there seemed profanation of his purely fair divinity in thus chaffingly
alluding to her delicate loveliness. Neither Colonel Norcott’s age nor his
character, to say nothing of the little real intimacy existing between him and
Arthur, could justify, he felt, the former in claiming the privileges of a
confidant; and this being so, Honor’s devoted admirer, without much
preamble or excuse, changed the conversation abruptly to one that
happened to be sufficiently interesting to both; for so long as Rough
Diamond was first favourite for the Derby, neither Colonel Frederick
Norcott nor the heir-apparent of Gillingham could be troubled by any lack
of a subject for conversation.
CHAPTER III.
UNSTABLE AS WATER.
Time was speeding away in the fair grounds of Danescourt; the trotting-
match had been trotted, and the rat-tailed horse had won the race. Colonel
Norcott was triumphant; and the déjeuner à la fourchette had put everyone
—men, women, and children—more or less, into still higher spirits than
before. As yet, Honor, not at all, as we know, to her surprise, had seen
nothing of Arthur Vavasour. The latter had given tolerably truthful reasons
for his change of purpose. “Circumstances over which” he believed that “he
had no control” were accountable for his appearance at Danescourt that day;
but that he had greatly rejoiced in silence over those same adverse
circumstances was a corollary with which he had not found it necessary to
garnish his statement. And yet the same reasons for his absence, which had
before appeared to him such wise and prudent ones, were in as full force
now as they had been when Arthur Vavasour decided in his own mind that
he would be insane to place himself at the same time within sight and reach
both of his fiancée and the woman whom absence had only rendered still
more dear to him.
“I will not go near her, I will only watch her from a distance; my
beautiful Honor! my sweet fairy rose! And it shall be the last time, the very
last! In a short time—ah, how very short!—the die will be cast; my fate will
be sealed, and I shall be hundreds of miles away, with only the memory of
my darling to link me with the past.”
Some such thoughts as these—selfish, self-pitying, wicked thoughts—
were passing through Arthur Vavasour’s mind when Colonel Norcott met
him on the course, and lightly talked to him of his love. And since that
moment,—while joining groups of acquaintances, uttering unmeaning love-
speeches into the ear of his betrothed, or endeavouring to assume an interest
which he felt not in the fate of Farmer Scroop’s rat-tailed trotter—he never
for many moments together lost mental sight of Honor Beacham, never
ceased to remember that at any turn of the road, under any spreading tree—
where smiles and merriment, and the ringing sounds of youthful voices, and
the pretty colouring of woman’s dress gave life and animation, he might
chance to see his lovely Honor, and there perchance betray, by an
unguarded word or look, to other eyes than Norcott’s the secret of his heart.
But if Arthur Vavasour thought a good deal during those swiftly passing
hours of Honor Beacham, that rather insouciante young woman did not (a
fact which, had he known it, would not have greatly improved the temper of
her admirer) trouble her pretty little head much about him. That she should
not so have done (albeit Mr. Vavasour stood foremost in her mind as the
finished type of all that was handsome, agreeable, and accomplished) is
very easily to be accounted for. The scene to Honor was so deliciously new,
and so untiringly interesting. Never, during that short life of hers, had she
witnessed anything so gay, so grand, or so fascinating. In the dresses of the
ladies alone she could have feasted her unaccustomed eyes for hours; and
when to these was added the charm of their contagious laughter, and the
latent enjoyment of knowing herself to be both observed and admired, can
we wonder that Honor should scarcely have found time to greatly regret the
absence of her friend?
Once, indeed, she thought of him; thought of him too very sadly, as of
one who was far away, and whom it might be very long, years perhaps,
before she met again. It was the sound of the trumpets and trombones, the
brazen serpents and the wailing cornets, that touched the minor chord of
melancholy in her impulsive breast. The band had been (with the regiment
to which it belonged) to the Russian war, and the perfume of glory, for
those simple Sandyshire people, hung—though many a year had passed
since their return from “foreign parts”—about those military musicians still.
The air they played was that sad, yet stirring parting one, that plaintive
Partant pour la Syrie, which has so often fallen upon loving hearts as the
knell of buried hopes, the echo of farewells between young loving hearts
doomed never to meet this side the grave for ever. Honor listened in dreamy
silence to “the lengthened sweetness long drawn out” of the suggestive
notes, and then, in spite of surrounding merriment and the shouts of
boisterous mirth, the tears rose to her long lashes, and but for very shame
she could have turned aside to weep.
But it was only for a moment that the fancy of the impressionable Irish
girl flew back to, and rested mournfully on, those farewell scenes still fresh
in the memory of the young. The present was neither the occasion, nor was
she in the mood, to be sorrowful. Although there was no delightfully
agreeable gentleman to look his admiration, and to elevate her by his ever-