The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-11-13 00:00:00

CHAPTER XLVIII

BACK AT THE. GRANGE.

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Confed'rate season, else no creature seeing.—SHAKESPEARE.
As had been before arranged, when the news came of
Noel's regiment being ordered for foreign service,
Beryl's stay in London afterwards was of the briefest.
There was much to be done in the intervening period
before her marriage, and a very few days after their
visit to the theatre saw the Whole party back on their
way to Atherstone Grange.
Little did its possessor dream, as she drove along
the road from the station to her ancestral home, of
the dread Nemesis already on her track, closing the
meshes of fate arounA tier slowly, but with unerring
hand, and clouding ovet all the bright, fairylike future
she had planned out for herself.
Everything on her way seemed so pleasant. The
woods had never looked fresher, or the wayside
flowers bloomed with such radiant hues. All seemed
to smile a welcome back to the fair young mistresi so
soon to leave them for an indefinite period, and every-
body she met upon the road seemed pleased to see
her.
No—not everybody.
James Statman and his nephew were the excep-

tions.
They were amongst the little crowd gathered round
the park gates in expectation of her arrival, and Beryl
shivered in spite of herself as she caught sight of their
mocking faces.
"Thank heaven l" she murmured to herself. The
time is very short now before I shall be out of their
reach. Only a few weeks, and then I shall be free
from the horrible dread that always comes over me
when I meet them. Onlce's Noel's wife, and away
from this place, I shall be happy. I suppose I shal
have to see them once more at least," she thought,
wearily. "Ah ! if that boy should betray me after
all. But no, he will not dare."
Still she feared that she would have to pay heavily
for his silence.
There was very little time to be lost now. Ather-
stone Grange was besieged day after day by "young
persons" with bandboxes, and flat cardboard recep-
tacles for dainty silks of the lightest possible texture,
and delicate muslins, that would form the bulk of
Beryl's trousseau; and Noel was backwards and for-
wards between the Grange and London almost daily,
making the necessary arrangements for his journey
and the event which was to precede it.
Indeed, everyone was pretty well o^cupied just
now. The rector had resumed his duties, and tried to
be as cheerful as usual, but in vain. The sermons he
preached lost none of their old force or loving kindness
towards the flock whose short comings he strove to
amend, but there was a tinge of melancholy ab ut
them, and stray touching allusions, which his hearers
were not slow to comprehend and sympathise with,
for was not his son about to take unto himself a wife,
and depart from his old home to the land where one
of his household &ready lay buried?
Among the gossips of the parish there was great
excitement. The news of the approaching wedding
caused an immense interest, and was discussed with
the freedom usual on such occasions.
It was so romantic, they declared, for the young
bride to leave a luxurious home and follow the fortunes
of her husband into a far-off country, and the thou-
sand and one items incidental to a wedding of so
much importance as that of the heiress of Atherstone
Grange gave plenty of food for gossip.
For Beryl herself, she seemed to live in a perfectwhirl
of preparation, not only as regarded dresses and au h-
like important considerations to feminim4 eyes, but
business arrangements occupied much of her time,
and she passed many hours with Mr. Carson, listening
wearily to dry legal details of what he had done,
was doing, and intended to do in her interests.
"It's just as if you were afraid that Noel couldn't
• be trusted with my money, though I give him my-
self," she said, with a pout. I should be ashamed to
be so suspicions."
" Ah, that's always the way with young ladies," he
replied, drily. "For my part, I think there's a great
deal of sentimental bosh talked about trust and con-
fidence. We know what we are, but we know not
what we may be,' as Shakespeare wisely observes.
Mr. Noel Atherstone is an honourable gentleman, I
verily believe ;
"There's no but in the case, Mr. Carson," warmly
interrupted Beryl. "However, there's no need going
over all that again. I suppose you must have my
signature to all those horrible documents?"
"Certainly. But about this one?" and he held it
up. "Don't you think that a thousand a year is
almost too liberal ?"
"Decidedly not," again interrupted eryl, im-
periously. "I have told you before that Mrs. Dalton
was a second mother to me at a time when I was all
forlorn in the world, and I choose to raalie her the
best and only return in my power."