Kept in the Dark | Page 2

he affect to
look down upon the peers of the last twenty years. His property was
small, but so singular were his gifts that he was able to be proud of that
also. It had all been in the possession of his family since the time of
James I. And he was a man who knew everything though only forty,
and by no means old in appearance. But, if you were to believe him, he
had all that experience of the world which nothing but unlimited years
could have given him. He knew all the Courts in Europe, and all the
race courses,--and more especially all the Jacks and Toms who had
grown into notoriety in those different worlds of fashion. He came to
Exeter to stay with his brother-in-law, the Dean, and to look after his
property for a while. There he fell in love with Cecilia Holt, and, after a
fortnight of prosperous love-making, made her an offer. This the young
lady accepted, averse as she was to lovers, and for a month was the
happiest and proudest girl in all Exeter. The happiness and pride of a
girl in her lover is something wonderful to behold. He is surely the only
man, and she the only woman born worthy of such a man. She is to be
the depository of all his secrets, and the recipient of all his thoughts.
That other young ladies should accept her with submission in this
period of her ecstasy would be surprising were it not that she is so truly
exalted by her condition as to make her for a short period an object to
them of genuine worship. In this way, for a month or six weeks, did
Miss Holt's friends submit to her and bear with her. They endured to be
considered but as the outside personages of an indifferent outer world,
whereas Cecilia herself with her lover were the only two inhabitants of
the small celestial empire in which they lived. Then there gradually
came to be a change. And it must be acknowledged here that the
change commenced with Cecilia Holt herself.

The greater the adoration of the girl the deeper the abyss into which she
falls,--if she be doomed to fall at all. A month of imperfection she can
bear, even though the imperfections be very glaring. For a month, or
perhaps for six weeks, the desire to subject herself to a newly-found
superior being supports her spirit against all trials. Neglect when it first
comes is not known to be neglect. The first bursts of ill-temper have
about them something of the picturesque,--or at any rate of the
grotesque. Even the selfishness is displayed on behalf of an object so
exalted as to be excusable. So it was with Cecilia Holt. The period of
absolute, unmistaken, unreasonable love lasted but for six weeks after
her engagement. During those six weeks all Exeter knew of it. There
was no reticence on the part of any one. Sir Francis Geraldine had
fallen in love with Cecilia Holt and a great triumph had been won.
Cecilia, in spite of her general well-known objection to lovers, had
triumphed a little. It is not to be supposed that she had miscarried
herself outrageously. He is cold-hearted, almost cruel, who does not
like to see the little triumph of a girl in such circumstances, who will
not sympathise with her, and join with her, if occasion come, in her
exaltation. No fault was found with Cecilia among her friends in Exeter,
but it was a fact that she did triumph. How it was that the time of her
worship then came to an end it would be difficult to say. She was
perhaps struck by neglect, or something which appeared to her to be
almost scorn. And the man himself, she found, was ignorant. The
ill-temper had lost its picturesqueness, and become worse than
grotesque. And the selfishness seemed to be displayed on an object not
so high as to render it justifiable. Then came a fortnight of vacillating
misery, in which she did not dare to tell her discomfort to either of her
friends. Her mother, who, though she could not read Schiller, was as
anxious for her daughter's happiness as any mother could be, saw
something of this and at last ventured to ask a question. "Was not
Francis to have been here this morning?"
Cecilia was at that moment thinking of her lover, thinking that he had
been untrue to his tryst now for the third time; and thinking also that
she knew him to be untrue not with any valid excuse, not with the
slightest cause for an excuse, but with a pre-determination to show the
girl to whom he was engaged that it did not suit him