Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)Wood, Henry, Mrs.
General
Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
Fiction
The boys were not assembling in any great amount of good feeling. Lewis,
who with his brother had passed the holidays at the house of the late
Marmaduke Carr, and consequently had been in Westerbury, did not forget
the grudge he owed to Henry Arkell. It had been Mr. Lewis's pleasure to
spend his leisure-hours (time, possibly, hanging somewhat heavily on his
hands) in haunting the precincts of the cathedral. Morning, noon, and
night had he been seen there; now hovering like a ghost in one of the
cloister quadrants, now playing at solitary pitch-and-toss in the
grounds, and now taking rather slow, meditative steps past the deanery.
He had thus made himself aware that Henry Arkell and Miss Beauclerc not
unfrequently met; whether by accident or design on the young lady's
part, she best knew. Four times each day had Henry Arkell to be in the
grounds and cloisters on his way to and from college; and, at the very
least, on two of those occasions, Miss Beauclerc would happen to be
passing. She always stopped. Lewis had seen him sometimes walking on
with only a lift of the trencher, and Miss Beauclerc would not have it,
but stopped as usual. There was no whispering, there were apparently few
secrets; the talking was open and full of gaiety on the young lady's
part, if her laughter was anything to judge by; but Lewis was not the
less savage. When _he_ met her, she would say indifferently, "How d'ye
do, Lewis?" and pass on. Once, Lewis presumed to stop her with some item
of news that ought to have proved interesting, but Miss Beauclerc
scarcely listened, made some careless remark in answer, and continued
her way: the next minute she met Henry Arkell, and stayed with _him_.
That Lewis was in love with the dean's daughter, he knew to his sorrow.
How worse than foolish it had been on his part to suffer himself to fall
in love with her, we might say, but that this passion comes to us
without our will. Lewis believed that she loved Henry Arkell; he
believed that but for Henry Arkell being in the field, some favour might
be shown to him; and he had gone on hating him with a fierce and bitter
hatred. One day, Henry had come springing down the steps of the
cathedral, and encountered Miss Beauclerc close to him. They stood there
on the red flagstones of the cloisters, no gravestone being in that
particular spot, Georgina laughing and talking as usual. Lewis was in
the opposite quadrant of the cloisters, peeping across stealthily, and a
devout wish crossed his heart that Arkell was buried on the spot where
he then stood. Lewis was fated not to forget that wish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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