DONOVAN

A Novel

BY

EDNA LYALL

AUTHOR OF "WON BY WAITING."

"And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around Our incompleteness,— Round our restlessness, His rest." E. B. BROWNING.

IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II.

LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1882.

All rights reserved.

Contents

I. Cast Adrift II. Rouge et Noir III. "The Raven for a Guide" IV. Struggling On V. Monaco VI. Losing Self to Find VII. "O'er Moor and Fen" VIII. One and All IX. In a Home X. Oakdene Manor XI. The Ideal Woman

DONOVAN.

CHAPTER I. CAST ADRIFT.

Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us, Not a hope that dare attend, The wide world is all before us, But a world without a friend. BURNS.

Two dry sticks will set on fire one green. He that takes the raven for a guide shall light upon carrion. Eastern Proverbs.

How long were things to go on in their present state? That was the question which, as the spring advanced, Ellis Farrant continually asked himself. One afternoon, towards the end of May, the thought pressed itself upon him more pertinaciously than ever. He was in the smoking-room, leaning back meditatively in his chair, from time to time reading a few lines in the Sporting News, but more often looking discontentedly and perplexedly at his step-son, who had drawn up his chair to the other side of the hearth, and whose fine profile was clearly marked out against the light as he bent over his newspaper. Two days ago Donovan had come of age, yet Ellis had not carried out his preconceived plan of revenge; in the past he had always intended to have the final breach with his step-son on the very day that his guardianship ended, but when the time actually came his heart failed him—no fitting opportunity presented itself. Instead of quarrelling with him, he drank his health at dinner, played billiards with him most of the evening, and was as good-natured and friendly

as possible. But, although the few months which had elapsed since Dot's death had been singularly peaceable ones at the Manor, Ellis had not lost his strong dislike to Donovan. He had at first felt sorry for him, and had left him unmolested; but it is one thing to sympathise with a person in the first poignancy of his grief, and quite another to understand or feel for his prolonged sorrow.

As the months passed on, and Donovan's grave stern face still remained unaltered, Ellis began to feel aggravated; he saw little enough of his step-son, but what he did see was quite sufficient to annoy him. Donovan would perhaps come down to breakfast, then he would disappear for the rest of the day, for long solitary rides or walks seemed to be his only relief; at dinner he would be in his place again, but would rarely utter a single word, and in the evening, though he was decidedly Ellis's superior at every game, he was too gloomy and taciturn to be a pleasant companion. The elder man's dislike and impatience began to grow uncontrollable; he found himself looking out eagerly for an opportunity of picking a quarrel.

As he sat looking thoughtfully across the room at his companion, his doubts were suddenly resolved by an unexpected turn of affairs. Donovan threw down his paper, and, turning round to his step-father, asked abruptly,

"When do you go up to town?"

"Next week, I believe," said Ellis, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and re-filling it.

There was a pause. Then Donovan continued,

"I have been thinking over things for the last few days, and I've made up my mind that this sort of life won't do for me any longer. I must begin to work at something."

"A most commendable decision," said Ellis. "And that's the longest sentence I've heard from you for many a month."

Donovan knew from the tone of this speech that his step-father was in a quarrelsome humour. He frowned, but continued, with some additional constraint in his manner,

"Since we are agreed, then, perhaps it would be as well if we arranged matters before leaving Oakdene. I am thinking of going into chambers and studying for the Bar; if you and my mother will settle my allowance, there is nothing that need keep me here longer."

"Gently, my good fellow," said Ellis, getting up from his chair with the feeling that he could carry things through with a high hand if he were standing above his step-son. "You are in rather too great a hurry; you rattle off in a few words what involves a great deal. I too have been thinking matters over, not only for the last two or three days, but for some time; by all means set to work if you like, only do not expect me to support you any longer. Live in chambers, if you will, and be a law-student for as many years as you please, only don't think that I shall keep you during the interval or pay your premium."

Donovan started to his feet.

"I don't understand you," he said, with repressed indignation. "What do you mean by this?"

"Simply what I say," said Ellis, provokingly.

"You mean me to understand that I am not to have any proper allowance made me?"

"Exactly so, though I don't admit the adjective."

The two men stood facing each other. For a few minutes neither spoke; Donovan's eyes dilated, and his face glowed with indignation. Ellis met his look with a cool bold effrontery.

At length the silence was broken by Donovan's voice.

"And this is what you have waited and plotted for! this is the part of the honourable English gentleman, to steal into a house, and win your way craftily, and mislead wilfully and shamefully those who never suspected your wickedness! Yes, you have fulfilled your duties as a guardian nobly, and now you would oust the 'insufferable cub,' whom you longed to kick out months ago, only you couldn't; instead you hoodwinked him, flattered, lured him on with false hopes. You scoundrel!"

"The step-son waxes hot," said Ellis, with a sneer, "as, naturally, we part this day, I will allow a few last shots."

"Wretch! Do you dare to turn me out of my own father's house?—you an interloper, a defrauder!"

"I have tolerated your presence in the house for ten months," said Ellis; "I knew that the time remaining was short, I let you stay on in peace; you have aggravated me at times beyond bearing, and now, with the greatest pleasure in life, I show you the door. You surmised quite truly, I have often longed to 'kick you out,' as you express it; take care that you do not force me to interpret the words literally."

"Do you think," said Donovan, angrily, "that my mother is so utterly unnatural that she will allow me to be treated in this way? I tell you you are mistaken, sir."

"You forget that your mother is my wife," said Ellis, watching his victim's writhing lip with a sort of enjoyment. "But, come now, I'll overlook what you've said, and we will part amicably; do not cut your own throat by refusing the pardon I offer."

"Pardon! And from you!" cried Donovan, passionately. "Am I to accept forgiveness for words which are a hundred times too mild for your conduct? I'll let the world know of the injustice, I'll publish your scandalous behaviour everywhere in the neighbourhood!"

"The only drawback to that scheme of revenge is the unfortunate character you yourself bear in the place," said Ellis, maliciously. "The neighbourhood will not very readily sympathise with any stories which the far-famed Donovan Farrant, the professed atheist, thinks fit to fabricate."

The statement was so true that Donovan could not deny it, but the consciousness of his utter isolation and the sense of injustice drove him almost to madness.

"That may be true!" he stormed, "anything may be true in a cruel, self-seeking, unjust world, but though everyone is against me, though I've not a creature on earth to hold out a hand to me, I will at least speak my mind to you. You are a traitor, sir, and a villain!"

"Take care," said Ellis, his colour mounting, "I give you fair warning that those words are actionable; use them again at your peril."

"You dare me to use them!" said Donovan, furiously. "I will repeat them a thousand times—you are a treacherous, despicable villain! Were a hundred witnesses present, a hundred lawsuits possible, I would repeat it! What! am I to submit to be ruined without a word?—am I to sink down meekly into beggary because a plotting, scheming traitor like you dares to condemn me?"

Ellis was trembling with mingled fear and rage.

"You had better go while I can keep my hands off you," he said, fiercely. "Stay longer and I'll have you sent to Bedlam."

Donovan's brain seemed to reel; it was almost impossible to believe that he was actually being turned out of his father's house.

"I will see my mother," he said, with angry resolution in his voice. "She will not suffer it, she cannot."

He strode out of the room fiercely, and hurried across the hall to the dining-room. Waif, hearing his step, sprang up from the door-mat and pattered after him, Ellis, following quickly, blocked the doorway before the door closed. Donovan turned back wildly.

"I tell you I insist on seeing my mother alone," he said, with a look so full of anger and hatred that Ellis shrank beneath it, but still he was able to answer with cold decision,

"And I tell you that I refuse to leave my wife with a maniac."

"Be it so," cried Donovan, "but, though you deny me everything, you cannot alter the instincts of nature. Mother, you will not—you cannot agree to this wickedness. You will not turn me away from this house penniless. You will not listen to what he says?"

Mrs. Farrant had been lying on the sofa; she started up from a doze to find the room in an uproar—Donovan and her husband storming at each other in a fashion without parallel. They had often before disagreed, even quarrelled in her presence, but in a quiet gentlemanly way, to which she did not object. This angry vociferation terrified her beyond measure. Donovan's rare and almost tropical outbursts of passion had always alarmed her. She turned now from his wild looks and impetuous words to her husband, who stood by in cold silence.

"What is the matter? What has happened, Ellis?" she asked, helplessly. "Pray stop this terrible noise. It is quite impossible for me to understand anything, Donovan, if you agitate me so."

"I will be quiet," he gasped, softening his voice with an effort. "I will not worry you for a moment. Only trust me, mother; listen to me fairly, and promise that you will not side against me. He—your husband insults me, drives me out of the house—this house which never ought to have been his—he turns me away penniless—say, only say that it is against your wish!"

Mrs. Farrant's tears began to flow, and she turned to her husband imploringly.

"Oh! Ellis, what has he done? Do not be hard upon him. He is the only child I have left. What has he done?"

Even in that moment of tumult, Donovan felt a thrill of joy at his mother's words. Was it possible that at last they might understand each other—that Nature would assert herself above the thick clouds of selfishness and uncongeniality which had so long divided them?

"Honora," said Ellis, in his coldest voice, "you must be content to trust me with this. I cannot allow Donovan's presence in my house any longer. For your sake I will let him go without calling him to account for the disgraceful language he has used to me, but go he must. He has been supported in idleness quite long enough; let him win his way in the world now as he can."

Donovan stood with his back against the window frame, and with arms folded, listening in silence to his step-father's words, listening, too, with painful intensity, for his mother's answer. Would she again plead for him, or would she be over-ruled by Ellis's cold speech?

"There has been nothing but trouble about him," sobbed Mrs. Farrant. "There seems to be a fate against me; nothing goes well. I have trouble after trouble. Oh! Donovan, why did you bring about this quarrel? For my sake you might have respected your step-father."

"At least believe that it was not my doing," cried Donovan, bitterly disappointed by her tone. "If you would only have believed what I told you last summer, we could not have been in this position; but who can stand against the coils of a serpent!"

"Go, sir," said Ellis, angrily, "go at once, and do not try my patience by upbraiding me before my wife."

"Did I not tell you that he would bring nothing but wretchedness to us?" said Donovan, desperately. "The time may come when you will see it more clearly. I can only hope that one victim may satisfy him, and that you may never suffer."

Mrs. Farrant sobbed convulsively, Donovan stooped down and kissed her, but, as he felt her tears wet on his cheek, he thought bitterly how one brave decided word from her would have been worth all this passionate sorrow.

With a dazzled bewildered feeling he crossed the hall and went up to his room; in a few minutes his bell was rung, and a message sent down to the housekeeper's room for Mrs. Doery to come upstairs. She came to him at once, looking so unchanged, with her nut-cracker features, sharp eyes, and respectable black dress and apron, that he felt almost as if time had been standing still with her, while it had brought such changes to him.

"Well, Mr. Donovan, what do you please to require?" she asked, severely:

He roused himself, and said in his natural voice—a rich mellow voice, but with a great ring of sadness in it—

"I am going away, Doery. Mr. Farrant has, in fact, turned me out of the house. I want you to put up my things for me."

Then, with that strange contradictoriness whereby the very last persons in the world whom we expect to love us, suddenly reveal depths of unsuspected tenderness under the stress of some unusual event, Mrs. Doery broke into indignant sobs. She had never heard the like in her life! Turn her lad out of the house when he ought to have been made his father's heir! It was impossible, intolerable, she never would believe the law of England would allow it! Her indignation rather softened Donovan, it was such a relief to feel that anyone, even this cross-grained old woman, would take his part! It seemed a strange reversal of the old order of things—Doery, stimulated by the cruelty of others, to allow some merit in him, or at least to bestow her pity on her ne'er-do-weel. He left her with a substantial souvenir, both for herself and for Dot's maid, Phœbe, generosity which in the precarious state of his finances was more natural than wise. Then he took a last look at Dot's room, put her little carriage clock with his own hands into his portmanteau, and

leaving directions with Doery for his things to be sent to the Greyshot Station in time for an evening train, he went downstairs. Ellis was in the hall, waiting half nervously for the full accomplishment of his plans, for the crowning moment of his triumph. Donovan passed by him without speaking, deliberately took down his stick and riding-whip from the rack, and then, facing round upon his step-father, said with a depth of concentrated hatred and contempt,

"We part here, then. Remember always how admirably you have goaded me on to ruin!"

Then the door was closed behind him, and Donovan left the house which should have been his, and walked away alone.

It was a beautiful spring afternoon, the dark fir-trees and the early crimson of the copper beech stood out against the blue of the sky, the oaks were beginning to show their green leaves, the pink and white thorns were in full bloom. The beauty of the place seemed never to have been so great before, and though very often Donovan had thought the Manor dull and prison-like, yet now that he was exiled from it he found how large a place it had in his heart. And he was to leave it for ever! his home was to remain in the hands of his greatest enemy! At the first bend in the carriage drive he involuntarily turned back for a last look at the house. It stood there in the afternoon sunshine, with just the same air of sleepy luxurious comfort which it had always worn; there, above the creeper-laden porch, was the window of his old room, and close by it Dot's window. He remembered the day when he had decided to give up his foreign tour for the sake of being with her, and heard in fancy the childish voice which could never again call him; how strange now seemed the struggle of the past to give

up his longing for a change of scene! how he grudged every hour that he had spent away from Dot! It was hard, very hard, to turn away from the place so full of her memory; no thought of future difficulties had as yet forced itself upon him, indignation and bitter sorrow drove out everything else—everything but a vague feeling of more complete desolation, more utter loneliness. He had thought that he had drained the full bitterness of the cup of life in the agony of bereavement, but here was a fresh draught which in its humiliating injustice was gall and wormwood to him.

All this time he was not however so friendless as he imagined; Waif followed him closely. His devotion to his master, which had always been very great, had become more marked since Dot's death; in Donovan's lonely rides and long walks Waif had always accompanied him, he had learnt to understand his master's moods and knew perfectly when to keep to heel in silent unobtrusiveness, and when to frisk and gambol about him; he had watched the stormy scene in the drawing-room, had followed Donovan noiselessly up and downstairs, now he trotted demurely behind him, well aware that this was not the right time to draw attention to his presence.

The gates were passed at length, and Donovan stood without in the white dusty road; he did not pause or hesitate or look back now, but strode along with fierce rapid steps, down the hill, through the little village, past old Mr. Hayes' deserted house, to the tiny grey church in the valley. Everything looked cruelly peaceful, on the hillside a herd of cows were browsing, a column of blue smoke curled up from the chimney of a little farmhouse close by, a country woman passed him singing to the brown-eyed baby in her arms. Contrasted with all this were Ellis's cruel words ringing in his ears, and the recollection of the hateful look of vindictive triumph which he had seen in his step-father's face. The frenzied passionate indignation surged up in his heart with redoubled force, he threw open the churchyard gate, and hurried up the flagged path, pausing however beside the little porch to look at a notice which had met his eye, as trifling things do sometimes force themselves upon us in moments of great agitation. He read with growing bitterness the words:—

"NEW ORGAN FUND.—Ellis Farrant, Esq., of Oakdene Manor, having generously promised £200 to the above fund, it is earnestly hoped that the additional £100 still required may be obtained. A special collection will be made, &c., &c." Charity, church-organs, generosity to win a good name with the world! behind the outward show, injustice, tyranny, and hatred!

Donovan turned aside past the great yew tree to the place where little Dot had been laid. The stone had just been put up, a recumbent cross, the sharp outlines of the white marble standing out clearly against the green grass; he threw himself down upon it in one of his terrible paroxysms of grief, in pain so unalleviated that it seemed like strong physical torture added to the mental suffering. How long he lay there with his face pressed down to the cold marble, and his hands grasping strainedly at the turf he never knew; it must have been for a long long time, for when he staggered to his feet again the sun was setting, and he found that only by walking briskly could he reach Greyshot in time for the evening train to London. With a still white cold face, which seemed to have absorbed something of the hard rigidity of the marble cross, he looked his last at the little grave, then hastily recrossed the churchyard. Waif, who had been watching him all the time with considerable anxiety, trotted on in front of him, but at the gate turned back to meet him and began to draw attention to