CHAPTER XXII.--GEORGETTE FRANKLIN'S STORY.

Next day I heard the stranger's story, and it was a sad one. Georgette Franklin--for such was her unmarried name--was the last surviving child of George Franklin, a decayed gentleman, who dwelt in Salop, near the Welsh border--we need not precisely say where, but within view of the green hills of Denbigh; for the swelling undulations of the beautiful Clwydian range formed the background to the prospect from the windows of that quaint old house which was nearly all that survived of his hereditary patrimony. Stoke Franklin--so named as it occupied the site of a timber dwelling of the Saxon times, coeval perhaps with Offa's Dyke--was still surrounded by a defensive ditch or moat, where now no water lay, but where, in the season, the primroses grew in golden sheets on the emerald turf. It was an isolated edifice, built of dark-red brick, with stone corners, stone mullions to its quaint old sunken windows, and ogee pediments or gables above them, also of stone. From foundation to chimneys it was quaint in style, ancient in date, and picturesque in aspect. Long lines of elms, and in some places pollard willows, marked the boundaries of what had been the demesne of the Franklins; but piecemeal it had passed away to more careful neighbours, and now little remained to George Franklin but the ground whereon the old mansion-house stood, and that sombre green patch in God's-acre, the neighbouring churchyard, where his wife and their four children lay, near the ancient yew, the greenery of which had decorated the altar in the yule feasts of centuries ago, and whose sturdy branches had furnished bow-staves for the archers who shot under his ancestors at Bosworth, at Shrewsbury, and Flodden Field.

George Franklin was not a misanthrope; far from it; but he lived very much alone in the old house. His oaken library, so solemnly tranquil, with its heavy dark draperies and book-hidden walls, when the evening sun stole through the deep mullions of the lozenged and painted windows, was his favourite resort. And a cozy room it proved in winter, when the adjacent meres were frozen, and the scalp of Moel Fammau was powdered with snow. There he was wont to sit, with Georgette by his knee, he reading and she working; a bright-faced, brown-haired, and lively girl, whose golden canaries and green love-birds hung in every window; for the house was quite alive with her feathered pets, and was as full of sound as an aviary with their voices in summer. One warm evening in autumn, when Georgette was verging on her eighteenth year, she and her father were seated near the house-door, under a shady chestnut-tree. The sunshine lay bright on the greensward, and on the wilderness of flowers and shrubs that grew close to the massive red walls of the old mansion. Mr. Franklin was idly lingering over a book and sipping a glass of some dark and full-bodied old port--almost the last bottle that remained in his now but ill-replenished cellar. And a very perfect picture the old man made. His thin but stately figure; his features so patrician in profile; his dress somewhat old in fashion; his hands, though faded, so shapely, with a diamond ring on one finger, the diamond ring of which we have heard so much lately; and the handsome girl who hovered about him, attending to his little wants, varying her kind offices with playful caresses, while her white neck and her golden-brown hair glittered in the sunshine--all this seemed to harmonise well with the old house that formed the background to the picture. The evening was quiet and still. The voices of Georgette's birds, her caged canaries and piping bullfinches, came through the open windows; but there were no other sounds, save once or twice when the notes of a distant hunting-horn, prolonged and sad, came on the passing wind, and then the old man would raise his head, and his clear eye would sparkle,

"As he thought of the days that had long since gone by,
When his spirit was bold and his courage was high;"

and when he, too, had followed that sound, and ridden across the stiffest country, neck and neck with the best horsemen in Salop and Cheshire.

Suddenly there came a shout, and a huntsman in red, minus his black velvet cap, was seen to clear a beech-hedge on the border of the lawn; and ere an exclamation of annoyance or indignation could escape old George Franklin, that his privacy should be invaded, even by a sportsman, in this unwonted manner, a cry of terror escaped Georgette; for it was evident that the gentleman's horse had become quite unmanageable, as the bridle-rein had given way; and after its terrible leap, it came tearing at a mad pace straight towards the house, and dashing itself head foremost against a tree, hurled the rider senseless on the ground. He rolled to the very feet of Georgette and her father, both of whom were full of pity and compassion, the former all the more so that the stranger was undoubtedly a handsome man, and barely yet in the prime of life. Aid was promptly summoned, and the village doctor, anxious to serve, for a time at least, one whom he deemed a wealthy patient, earnestly seconded, and even enforced, the suggestion of the hospitable George Franklin, that the sufferer, whose head was contused, and whose shoulder-blade had narrowly escaped fracture, should neither be removed nor disturbed. Hence he was at once assigned a room in the old mansion, with Georgette's old Welsh nurse, now the housekeeper, to attend him. He was a man, however, of a strong constitution, "one of those fellows who are hard to kill," as he phrased it; thus, on the third morning after the accident, he was well enough to make his way to the breakfast room.

Georgette, attired in a most becoming muslin dress, and looking fresh, rosy, and innocent, as a young girl can only look who has left her couch after a healthy slumber to greet the sunny morning, was standing on a chair in an oriel, attending to the wants of one of her feathered pets; suddenly the chair slipped, and she was about to fall, when a strong arm, in the sleeve of a scarlet hunting-coat, encircled and supported her. This little contretemps made both parties at once at home, and on easy terms.

"Mr. Guilfoyle!" exclaimed the girl, for it was he.

"Miss Franklin, I presume?"

"Are you well already?" she asked.

"Nearly so," said he, smilingly, as he took in all the girl's beauty at a glance, together with the pleasant view beyond the antique oriel, where the morning sun came down on the shining leaves, covering all the dewy ground, as it were, with drops of golden light; and the quaint old house, he thought, seemed such a pleasant home.

"How happy papa will be!" said the young lady, colouring slightly under his somewhat critical gray--or rather green--eye. "I should have nursed you myself, instead of old nurse Wynne," she added, archly.

"In that case I should have been in no hurry to announce my convalescence," said he, rather pointedly; "may I ask your name--the first one, I mean? Somehow, I fancy that I can judge of character by the name."

"Georgette Franklin."

"Georgette!"

"I am called after papa."

"A charming name!" he exclaimed, but in a low tone.

Naturally frank and honest, purely innocent, and assured of her own position, and of that of her father--for though poor now, he was one of England's old untitled aristocracy--the girl felt neither awkwardness nor shyness with her new friend, who, though polished in manner, easy, and not ungraceful, was a thorough man of the world, and selfishly ready to take advantage of every place and person who came in his way; and a very simple one, indeed, was the kind old gentleman who now came to welcome his visitor, to express fears that he had left his couch too soon; and critically and keenly this hawk, who was now in the dove's nest, eyed him, and saw, by the thinness of his hair, his spare figure and wrinkled face, "delicately lined by such characters as a silver stylus might produce upon a waxen tablet," that his years could not be many now; yet his keen gray eyes were full of bright intelligence still, and were shaded by lashes as long and silky as those of his daughter.

Hunting and breakfast were discussed together. Mr. Guilfoyle seemed, or affected to be, an enthusiast in old English sports, professing that he loved them for themselves and from their associations; and quite won George Franklin's heart by stigmatising the "iron horse" of civilisation, which was now bearing all before it; and his host seemed to grow young again, as he recurred to the field exploits of his earlier years, over the same ground which Mr. Guilfoyle--who had been on a visit to the house of some friend twenty miles distant--had hunted so recently: round beautiful Ellesmere, by Halston and Hordley, by the flat fields of Creamore, by the base of wooded Hawkstone, where he had made many a terrible flying leap, and away by Acton Reynald; all this ground had Guilfoyle gone over but lately, and, as the event proved, almost fatally for his own bones, and more fatally for his future peace of mind, as he pretty plainly indicated to Miss Franklin on every available opportunity, in the softest and most well-chosen language. Though able to leave his room, he was neither permitted to leave the house nor attempt to mount; so he wrote to his friend, had some of his wardrobe sent over to Stoke Franklin, and, encouraged by the hearty hospitality of its owner, took up his quarters there for an indefinite period; at least, until his hunting friend should depart for Madeira, whither he had promised to accompany him; for Mr. Hawkesby Guilfoyle seemed somewhat of a cosmopolitan, and rather peripatetic in his habits. He had been over one half the world, according to his own accounts, and fully intended to go over the other; so he proved a very agreeable companion to the hitherto lonely father and daughter in that secluded mansion in Salop. Merciful it is, indeed, that none of us can lift the veil that hides the future; thus little could George Franklin foresee the influence this man was to exert over the fate of his daughter and himself, when he listened to his plausible anecdotes, or sat alone and happy in his shady old library, communing pleasantly with his ancient favourites--with Geoffrey Chaucer, the knightly pages of Froissart, Dame Juliana Berners on hunting and hawking, and works, rare as manuscripts, that came from the antique press of Caxton and De Worde. Mr. Guilfoyle found himself in very pleasant quarters, indeed. It was ever his principle to improve the occasion or the shining hour. Georgette was highly accomplished, and knew more than one language; so did he; so week after week stole pleasantly away.

By them the touching airs of Wales, the merry chansons of Wronger, were played and sung together; and she it was, and no Princess of Catzenelnbogen, who taught him that wild German farewell, with its burden of "Leb'wohl! Leb'wohl!" we had heard at Craigaderyn Court. Even Petrarch was not omitted by them; for he knew, or pretended to know, a smattering of Italian, and translated the tenderest speeches of Laura's lover with a point that caused the young girl's heart to vibrate with new and strange emotions. And now, ever and anon, there was a heightened flush on her soft cheek, a bright sparkle in her dark gray eye, a lightness in all her motions; she had moments of merry laughter, alternated by others of dreamy sadness--that yet was not all sadness--which showed that Georgette was in love.

And Guilfoyle, in his own fashion, loved her, too; but he had learned that of all George Franklin's once noble estate, the house alone remained, and that at his death even it must inevitably go to the spoiler; so, though to love Georgette was very pleasant and sweet, matrimony with her was not to be thought of. Money was the god of Guilfoyle's idolatry, and he thought of the wonder of his "fast" friends when they asked, "What did he get with his wife?" and how they should laugh if they heard he had married for love. Yet Georgette had become besotted--there is no other word for it, save infatuated--by him; by one who had made flippant love with strange facility to many. By degrees he artfully strove to warp or poison the girl's mind; but finding that instinctively her innocence took the alarm after a time, though she long misunderstood him, he quite as artfully changed his tactics, and spoke sorrowfully of his imperative and approaching departure for Madeira, of the agony such a separation would cause him; "it might be for years, and it might be for ever," and so forth, while, reclining in tears on his breast, the girl heard him. Taking the right time, when she was thoroughly subdued or softened by love, and fear lest she should lose him, he prayed her to elope or consent to a private marriage--he was not without hopes that his hunting friend might officiate as parson. This, he urged, would keep them true to each other until his return and their final reunion; but to this measure she would not consent.

"Come with me, then, to Madeira; we shall be back in a month, at latest."

"But think of dear papa--my poor old papa," replied Georgette, piteously; "worn as he is with years and infirmity, I cannot leave him even for so short a time; for who will soothe his pillow when I am gone?"

"Old moth--Mrs. Wynne can do all that; at least, until we return," said he, almost impatiently.

"But must you really go to Madeira?" pleaded the gentle voice.

"I must, indeed: business of the first importance compels me; in fact, my funds are there," he added, with charming candour, as his hunting friend had promised to frank him to Funchal and back again to London. "We shall be gone but a short time, and when we return this dear old house shall be brighter than ever, and together we shall enliven his old age. We shall kneel at his feet, darling Georgie, and implore--"

"Why not kneel now," urged Georgette, "and beg his consent and blessing?"

"Nay, that would be inopportune, absurd, melodramatic, and all that sort of thing. Returning, we shall be linked in the fondest affection; returning, he will be unable to resist our united supplications. Come, darling, come with me. Let us despise the silly rules of society, and the cold conventionalities of this heartless world! Let us live but for each other, Georgie; and O, how happy we shall be, when we have passed, through the medium of romance, into the prose of wedded life; though that life, my darling, shall not be altogether without romance to us!"

Overcome by the intensity of her affection for this man, her first and only lover, the poor girl never analysed the inflated sophistries he poured into her too willing ear, but sank, half fainting with delight, upon his shoulder. Guilfoyle clasped her fondly in his arms; he covered her brow, her eyes--and handsome eyes they were--her lips, and braided hair, with kisses, and in his forcible but somewhat fatuous language, poured forth his raptures, his love, and his vows of attachment.

Suddenly a terror came over her, and starting from his arm, she half repulsed him, with a sudden and sorrowful expression of alarm in her eye.

"Leave me, Hawkesby," said she, "leave me, I implore you; I cannot desert papa, now especially, when most he needs my aid. O, I feel faint, very faint and ill! I doubt not your love, O, doubt not mine; but--but--'

"I must and do doubt it," said he, sadly and gloomily. "But enough of this; to-morrow I sail from Liverpool, and then all shall be at an end."

"O God, how lonely I shall be!" wailed the girl; "I would, dear Hawkesby, that you had never come here."

"Or had broken my neck when my horse cleared yonder hedge," said he, as his arm again went round her, and the strong deep love with which he had so artfully succeeded in inspiring her, triumphed over every sentiment of filial regard, of reason, and humanity. She forgot the old parent who doted on her; the stately old ancestral home, that was incrusted with the heraldic honours of the past; she forgot her position in the world, and fled with the parvenu Guilfoyle.

That night the swift express from Shrewsbury to Birkenhead, as it swept through the beautiful scenery by Chirk and Oswestry, while the wooded Wrekin sank flat and far behind, bore her irrevocably from her home; but her father's pale, white, and wondering face was ever and always upbraidingly before her. As Guilfoyle had foreseen, no proper marriage could be celebrated at Liverpool ere the ship sailed from the Mersey. He hurried her on board, and his hunting friend--a dissipated man of the world, ordered to Madeira for the benefit of his health--received the pale, shrinking, and already conscience-stricken girl in the noisy cabin of the great steamer with a critical eye and remarkably knowing smile, while his manner, that for the time was veiled by well-bred courtesy, might have taught the poor dove that she was in the snares of an unscrupulous fowler.

But ere the great ship had made the half of her voyage--about six days--in her sickness of body and soul, the girl had made a friend and confidant of the captain, a jolly and good-hearted man, who had girls of his own at home; and he, summoning a clergyman who chanced to be on board, under some very decided threats compelled Guilfoyle to perform the part he had promised; so he and Georgette were duly wedded in the cabin, while, under sail and steam, the vessel cleft the blue waves of the western ocean, and her ensign was displayed in honour of the event. But there the pleasure and the honour ended, too; and Guilfoyle soon showed himself in his true colours, as a selfish and infamous roué.

"Alas!" said she, weeping, "he no longer called me the pet names I loved so well; or made a fuss with me, and caressed me, as he was wont to do among the pleasant woods of Stoke Franklin. I felt that, though he was my husband, he was a lover no longer! We had not been a fortnight at Madeira when we heard that the vessel, on board of which we were married, had perished at sea with all on board, including her temporary chaplain. Then it was that Mr. Guilfoyle tore from me the sole evidence of that solemn ceremony given to me by the clergyman, and cast it in the flames before my face, declaring that then he was free! Of our past love I had no relic but a gold locket containing his likeness and bearing a date, the 1st of September, the day on which we were married, with our initials, H. H. and G., and even that he rent from me yesterday. Alas for the treachery of which some human hearts are capable! We were one no longer now, as the old song has it:

"'That time!--'tis now "long, long ago!"
Its hopes and joys all passed away!

On life's calm tide three bubbles glow;
And pleasure, youth, and love are they,

Hope paints them bright as bright can be,
Or did, when he and I were we!'

As a finishing stroke to his cruelty and perfidy, he suddenly quitted Madeira, after some gambling transaction which brought the alcalde of Funchal and other authorities upon him. He effected his escape disguised as a vendor of sombreros and canary birds, and got clear off, leaving a note by the tenor of which he bequeathed me to his friend, with whom he left me at a solitary quinta among the mountains."

Though dissipated and "fast" by nature and habit, the latter was at heart an English gentleman; and pitying the forlorn girl abandoned in a foreign colony under circumstances so terrible, he sent her home; and one day, some six months after her flight, saw her once more standing irresolutely at the closed gate of the old manor-house of Stoke Franklin.

The latter was empty now; the windows were closed, the bird-cages hung there no more; the golden and purple crocuses she had planted were peeping up from the fragrant earth, untended now; the pathways were already covered with grass and mosses; untrimmed ivy nearly hid the now unopened door; the old vanes creaked mournfully in the wind; and save the drowsy hum of the bees, all spoke to her hopeless, despairing, and remorseful heart of the silence and desolation that follow death. The odour of last year's dead leaves was heavy on the air. After a time she learned how rapidly her father had changed in aspect, and how he had sunk after her disappearance--her desertion of him; and how there came a time when the fine old gentleman, whose thin figure half stooping, with his head bent forward musingly, his scant white hair floating over the collar of his somewhat faded coat, his kindly but wrinkled face, his tasselled cane trailing behind him from his folded hands, whilom so familiar in the green lanes about Stoke Franklin, and who was always welcomed by the children that gambolled on the village green or around the old stone cross, and the decayed wooden stocks that stood thereby, appeared no more. A sudden illness carried him off, or he passed away in his sleep, none knew precisely which; and then another mound under the old yew-tree was all that remained to mark where the last of the Franklins, the last of an old, old Saxon line, was laid.

I promised to assist her if I could, though without the advice of a legal friend I knew not very clearly what to do; besides, knowing what lawyers usually are, I had never included one in the circle even of my acquaintances. Estelle's long silence, and the late episode in the lane, chiefly occupied my thoughts while riding back to the barracks, where somewhat of a shock awaited me.