Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs. Blackmore Richard Doddridge

of the Vervain (sprightlier and less oppressive than the scent of roses), until his white beard ceased to flutter, and the strong lines of his face relaxed into soft drowsiness.

      Observing thence the proper time when sweet sleep was encroaching, and haste, and heat, and sudden temper were as far away as can be from a man of Eastern blood, Artemise, his daughter, touched him with the smile which he used to love, when she was two years old and upward; and his thoughts without his knowledge flew back to her mother.

      “Father to me, father dearest,” she was whispering to him, in the native tongue which charms the old, as having lulled their cradles; “father to me, tell what trouble has together fallen on you in this cold and foreign land.”

      Melody enough was still remaining, in the most melodious of all mortal languages, for a child to move a father into softer memories, at the sound of ancient music thus revived, and left to dwell.

      “Child of my breast,” the prince replied, in the very best modern Hellenic, “a strong desire to sleep again hath overcome mine intellect.”

      “Thus is it the more suited, father, for discourse with such as mine. Let your little one share the troubles of paternal wisdom.”

      Suasion more than this was needed, and at every stage forthcoming, more skilfully than English words or even looks could render, ere ever the paternal wisdom might be coaxed to unfold itself; and even so it was not disposed to be altogether explicit.

      “Ask me no more,” he said at last; “enough that I foresee great troubles overhanging this sad house.”

      “Oh, father, when, and how, and what? How shall we get over them, and why should we encounter them? And will my husband or my children – ”

      The prince put up one finger as if to say, “Ask one thing at a time,” the while he ceased not to revolve many and sad counsels in his venerable head; and in his gaze deep pity mingled with a father’s pride and love. Then he spoke three words in a language which she did not comprehend, but retained their sound, and learned before her death that they meant this – “Knowledge of trouble trebles it.”

      “Now best-loved father,” she exclaimed, perceiving that his face was set to tell her very little, “behold how many helpless ones depend upon my knowledge of the evils I must shield them from. It is – nay, by your eyes – it is the little daughter whom you always cherished with such love and care, who now is the cause of a mind perplexed, as often she has been to you. Father, let not our affairs lay such burden on your mind, but spread them out and lighten it. Often, as our saying hath it, oftentimes the ear of folly is the purse for wisdom’s gems.”

      “I hesitate not, I doubt no longer. I do not divide my mind in twain. The wisdom of them that come after me carries off and transcends mine own, as a mountain doth a half-peck basket. Wherefore, my daughter, Artemise, wife of the noble Englishman with whom she ran away from Caria, and mother of my five grandchildren, she is worthy to know all that I have learned from heaven; ay, and she shall know it all.”

      “Father to me dearest, yes! Oh, how noble and good of you!”

      “She shall know all,” continued the prince, with a gaze of ingenuous confidence, and counting on his fingers slowly; “it may be sooner, or it may be later; however, I think one may safely promise a brilliant knowledge of everything in five years after we have completed the second century from this day. But now the great comet is waiting for me. Let me have my boots again. Uncouth, barbarous, frightful things! But in such a country needful.”

      His daughter obeyed without a word, and hid her disappointment. “It is only to wait till to-morrow,” she thought, “and then to fill him a larger pipe, and coax him a little more perhaps, and pour him more wine of Burgundy.”

      To-morrow never came for him, except in the way the stars come. In the morning he was missed, and sought for, and found dead and cold at the end of his longest telescope. In Chanctonbury Ring he died, and must have known, for at least a moment, that his death was over him; for among the stars of his jotting-chart was traced, in trembling charcoal, “Sepeli, ubi cecidi” – “Bury me where I have fallen.”

      CHAPTER VIII.

      ASTROLOGICAL FORECAST

      Alice Lorraine, with no small excitement, heard from her father’s lips this story of their common ancestor. Part of it was already known to her through traditions of the country; but this was the first time the whole had been put into a connected narrative. She wondered, also, what her father’s reason could be for thus recounting to her this piece of family history, which had never been (as she felt quite sure) confided to her brother Hilary; and, like a young girl, she was saying to herself as he went on – “Shall I ever be fit to compare with that lovely Artemise, my ever-so-long-back grandmother, as the village people call it? and will that fine old astrologer see that the stars do their duty to us? and was the great comet that killed him the one that frightens me every night so? and why did he make such a point of dying without explaining anything?”

      However, what she asked her father was a different question from all these.

      “Oh, papa, how kind of you to tell me all that story! But what became of Artemise – ‘Lady Lorraine’ I suppose she was?”

      “No, my dear; ‘Mistress Lorraine,’ or ‘Madame Lorraine’ perhaps they called her. The old earldom had long been lost, and Roger, her son, who fell at Naseby, was the first baronet of our family. But as for Artemise herself – the daughter of the astrologer, and wife of Hilary Lorraine, she died at the birth of her next infant, within a twelvemonth after her father; and then it was known why he had been so reluctant to tell her anything.”

      “Oh, I am so sorry for her! Then she is that beautiful creature hanging third from the door in the gallery, with ruches beautifully picked out and glossy, and wonderful gold lace on her head, and long hair, and lovely emeralds hanging down as if they were nothing?”

      “Yes,” said Sir Roland, smiling at his daughter’s style of description, “that of course is the lady; and the portrait is clearly a likeness. At one time we thought of naming you after her – ‘Artemise Lorraine’ – for your nurse discovered that you were like her at the mature age of three days.”

      “Oh, papa, how I wish you had! It would have sounded so much nicer, and so beautifully romantic.”

      “Just so, my child; and therefore, in these matter-of-fact times, so deliciously absurd. Moreover, I hope that you will not be like her, either in running away from your father, or in any other way – except her kindness and faithfulness.”

      He was going to say, “in her early death;” but a sudden touch of our natural superstition stopped him.

      “Papa, how dare you speak as if any one ever, in all the world, could be fit to compare with you? But now you must tell me one little thing – why have you chosen this very day, which ought to be such a happy one, for telling me so sad a tale, that a little more would have made me cry?”

      “The reason, my Lallie, is simple enough. This happens to be the very day when the two hundred years are over; and the astrologer’s will, or whatever the document is, may now be opened.”

      “His will, papa! Did he leave a will? And none of us ever heard of it!”

      “My dear, your acquaintance with his character is, perhaps, not exhaustive. He may have left many wills without wishing to have them published; at any rate, you shall have the chance, before it grows dark, to see what there is.”

      “Me! or I – whichever is right? – me, or I, to do such a thing! Papa, when I was six years old I could stand on my head; but now I have lost the art, alas!”

      “Now, Alice, do try to be sensible, if you ever had such an opening. You know that I do not very often act rashly; but you will make me think I have done so now, unless you behave most steadily.”

      “Papa, I am steadiness itself; but you must make allowance for a little upset at the marvels heaped upon me.”

      “My dear child, there are no marvels; or, at any rate, none for you to know. All you have to do is to go, and to fetch a certain document.