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Kate Vernon, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Kate Vernon, Vol. 2 (of 3) A Tale. In three volumes
CHAPTER I
CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON
It would give a very false idea of Kate Vernon's character, were we to say that Captain Egerton's departure did not leave a blank in the quiet routine of her life. Indeed, she was rather surprised to find how closely he had linked himself with the pleasures and occupations of the secluded little circle amongst whom accident had thrown him. She missed his ready companionship, and the amusing contrariety of his opinions and prejudices; she missed the interested attention with which he listened to every word that fell from her lips, and her eye, peculiarly alive to beauty in every form, missed his distinguished, soldierly figure, and bold, frank, open face. But her regrets did not even border on the sentimental, and were spoken as openly as her grandfather's, who every hour in the day, for a week, at least, after his departure, might be heard to say – "If Fred Egerton was here, he would do this, or that, for me." In short, Kate had never dreamt of Egerton as a lover. Marriage was to her a distant possibility – desirable, certainly, in due time, as she always considered it, if happy, the happiest state of life; but marriage with a soldier, who could not be always near her grandfather, was something so utterly beyond the powers of her imagination to conceive, that it gave her all the ease and security she might have felt with a brother.
So the winter wore steadily away. The morning's study – the afternoon walk with her grandfather – often to visit the sick and needy – the interchange of contrasting thought with Winter and the organist, kept Miss Vernon too wholesomely active both in mind and body to permit the pleasant monotony of her life to degenerate into stagnation.
But the half-hour in the evening, while her grandfather dosed, was the happiest portion of the day to her; when she leaned back in her chair gazing at the fire-light as it danced upon the wall and cast uncouth shadows, and, following some train of thought suggested by the reading, or occurrences of the day, dreamed of the future, or conjured up the past! And often did she feel surprise, at the frequent recurrence of the ball at Carrington – of Egerton's farewell – among these visions – though, at this point, she ever turned resolutely away.
Then Colonel Vernon was laid up for a month with a feverish cold, which made Kate rather anxious, and banished every thought not connected with the invalid.
So-came on the lengthening days' warmer sun, and more piercing winds of early spring; and one morning, towards the end of March, Mrs. O'Toole laid two letters before the Colonel; one directed to him in a clear, bold hand, bearing the Marseilles' post-mark, the other to Kate.
"I really think this is from Fred Egerton," said the Colonel, feeling in every pocket for glasses. "Kate, my dear! they were hanging round my neck before breakfast?"
"Oh! here they are, dear grandpapa," exclaimed she, eagerly; "do not mind looking at the outside – open it."
And she laid aside her own.
With many a break, and many a tantalising pause, the Colonel slowly doled forth Egerton's letter, it was short, and contained little more than a report of his safe arrival, after a tedious journey, many expressions of sincere regard, and kind enquiries for his friends at A – , but breathed an indefinable tone of despondency, and restlessness of spirit, unlike anything they had hitherto observed in him.
The Colonel, at length, concluded, in a sort of surprised accent, as though he expected something more; and Kate exclaimed —