MITCHELHURST PLACE

A Novel

BY

MARGARET VELEY

AUTHOR OF "FOR PERCIVAL"

"Que voulez-vous? Hélas! notre mère Nature,
Comme toute autre mère, a ses enfants gâtés,
Et pour les malvenus elle est avare et dure!"

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1884

The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved.

Bungay:

CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

TO
BARBARA'S BEST FRIEND

ELFRIDA IONIDES

HER STORY IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY
AND GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

MITCHELHURST PLACE

CHAPTER I.
TREASURES DROPPED AND PICKED UP.

"Dans l'air pâle, émanant ses tranquilles lumières
Rayonnait l'astre d'or de l'arrière-saison."

There was nothing remarkable in the scene. It was just a bit of country lane, cut deeply into the side of a hill, and seamed with little pebbly courses, made by the streams of rain which had poured across it on their downward way. The hill-side faced the west, and, standing on this ledge as on a balcony, one might look down into a valley where cattle were feeding in the pastures, and where a full and softly-flowing river turned the wheel of a distant mill, and slipped quietly under the arched bridge of the lower road. Sometimes in summer the water lay gleaming, like a curved blade, in the midst of the warm green meadows, but on this late October day it was misty and wan, and light vapours veiled the pale globe of the declining sun. Looking upward from the valley, a broad slope of ploughed land rose above the road, and the prospect ended in a hedge, a gate, through whose bars one saw the sky, and a thin line of dusky, red-trunked firs. But from the road itself there was nothing to be seen in this direction except a steep bank. This bank was crowned with hawthorn bushes, and here and there a stubborn stunted oak, which held its dry brown leaves persistently, as some oaks do. With every passing breath of wind there was a crisp rustling overhead.

This bit of road lay deserted in the faint yellow gleams. But for a wisp of straw, caught on an overhanging twig, and some cart-tracks, which marked the passage of a load, one might have fancied that the pale sun had risen, and now was about to set, without having seen a single wayfarer upon it. But there were four coming towards it, and, slowly as two of them might travel, they would yet reach it while the sunlight lasted. The little stage was to have its actors that afternoon.

First there appeared a man's figure on the crest of the hill. He swung himself over the gate, and came with eager strides down the field, till he reached the hedge which divided it from the road. There he stopped, consulted his watch, and sheltering himself behind one of the little oaks, he rested one knee on a mossy stump, and thus, half-standing, half-kneeling, he waited. The attitude was picturesque, and so was the man. He had bright grey-blue eyes, hair and moustache brown, with a touch of reddish gold, a quick, animated face, and a smiling mouth. It was easy to see that he was sanguine and fearless, and on admirable terms with himself and the world in general. He was young, and he was pleasant to look at, and, though he could hardly have dressed with a view to occupying that precise position, his brown velvet coat was undeniably in the happiest harmony with the tree against which he leaned, and the withered foliage above his head.

To wait there, with his eyes fixed on that unfrequented way, hardly seemed a promising