"How do you feel, Madge? are you sure you are equal to this business?" said Lady Davyntry to Margaret, as she came into her sister-in-law's room on the morning of Haldane's marriage. "Haldane is walking about the hall in the most horrid temper, your father is lingering over the last importation of bats, as if he were bidding them an eternal farewell, and the carriage is just coming round, so I thought I would come and look after you two. I felt sure you would be with the child. What a shame not to bring her to the wedding!--Isn't it, Gerty?" and Lady Davyntry, looking very handsome and stately in her brave attire, took the little girl out of her mother's arms, and paused for a reply.
Margaret was quite ready. She was very well, she said, and felt quite equal to the wedding festivities.
"That's right; I like weddings, when one isn't a principal; they are very pleasant. How pale you are, Margaret! Are you really quite well?"
"She is really quite well," said Mr. Baldwin; "don't worry her, Eleanor."
The slightest look of surprise came into Eleanor's sweet-tempered face, but it passed away in a moment, and they all went down to the hall, where Margaret received many compliments from her father on her dress and appearance, and where Haldane on seeing them first assumed a foolish expression of countenance, which he wore permanently for the rest of the day.
The carriages were announced. Margaret and her husband, Lady Davyntry and Mr. Carteret, were to occupy one; the other was to convey Haldane, Hayes Meredith and his son, and James Dugdale.
"Where is James?" asked Mr. Carteret. "I have not seen him this morning."
Nobody had seen him but Haldane, who explained that he had preferred walking on to the church.
"Just like him," said Haldane, "he is such an odd fellow; only fancy his asking me to get him off appearing at breakfast. Could not stand it, he said, and was sure he would never be missed. Of course I said he must have his own way, though I couldn't make him out. He could stand Margaret's wedding well enough."
The last day of Margaret's stay at Chayleigh had arrived. All arrangements had been made for the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin and Mr. Carteret. An extraordinary event was about to take place in the life of the tranquil old gentleman. He was about to be separated from the collection for an indefinite period, and taken to the Deane, a place whose much-talked-of splendours he had never even experienced a desire to behold, having been perfectly comfortable in the knowledge that they existed and were enjoyed by his daughter.
That her father should be induced to accompany her to Scotland, that she should not be parted from him, had been so urgent a desire on Margaret's part, that her husband and James Dugdale had set themselves resolutely to obtain its realisation, and they had succeeded, with some difficulty. The collection was a great obstacle, but then Mr. Baldwin's collection--whose treasures the old gentleman politely and sincerely declared his eagerness to inspect, while he secretly cherished a pleasing conviction that he should find them very inferior to those of his own--was a great inducement; besides, he had corresponded formerly with a certain Professor Bayly, of Glasgow, who had some brilliant theories connected withBos primus, and this would be a favourable opportunity for seeing the Professor, who rarely "came South," as he called visiting England.
He was not at all disturbed by Margaret's eager desire that he should accompany her; he did not perceive in it the contradiction to her usual unselfish consideration for others, which James Dugdale saw and thoroughly understood, and which Mr. Baldwin saw and did not understand, but set down to the general account of her "nervousness." He had been rather unhappy at first about the journey and the change; but James's cheerful prognostications, and the unexpected discovery that Foster, his inseparable servant, whose displeasure was a calamity not to be lightly incurred, so far from objecting to the tremendous undertaking, "took to" the notion of a visit to the Deane very kindly, was a relief which no false shame interfered to prevent; Mr. Carteret candidly admitting, and the whole family thankfully recognising.
"I don't know how I should have got through this day," Margaret said to James, as they stood together on the terrace under the verandah, and she plucked a few of the tender young leaves which had begun to unfold, under the persuasion of the spring time--"I don't know how I should have got through this day, if papa had not agreed to come with us. It is bad enough as it is; a last day"--she was folding the tiny leaves now, and putting them between the covers of her pocket-book--"is always dreadful--dreadful tome, I mean. It sounds stupid and commonplace to talk of the uncertainty of life, but I don't think other people live always under the presence of the remembrance, the conviction of it, as I do. It is always over me, and it makes everything which has anything of finality about it peculiarly impressive to me."
Her hand was resting on his arm now, and they turned away from the house-front and walked down the grassy slope.
"Do you--do you mean that this sense of uncertainty relates to yourself?" he asked her, speaking with evident effort, and holding her arm more closely to him.
"Yes," she replied calmly; "I am never tortured by any fears about those I love now; the time was when I was first very, very happy; when the wonderful, glorious sense of the life that had opened to me came upon me fully; when I hardly dared to recognise it, because of the shadow of death. Then it hung over my husband and my child; over my father--and--you."
He shook his head with an involuntary deprecatory movement, and a momentary flicker of pain disturbed his grave thoughtful eyes.
"And it lent an intensity which sometimes I could hardly bear to every hour of my life--my wonderfully happy life," she repeated, and looked all around her in a loving solemn way which struck the listener to the heart. "But then the thing I had dreaded, though I had never divined its form, though it had gradually faded from my mind, came upon me--you know how, James, and how rebellious I was under my trial; no one knows but God and you--and then, then the shadow was lightened. It never has fallen again over them or you; it hangs only over me, and--James, look at me, don't turn away--I want to remember every look in your face to-day; it is not a shadow at all, but only a veil before the light whose glory I could not bear yet awhile. That is all, indeed."
He did not speak, and she felt that a sharp thrill of pain ran through his spare form.
"Don't be angry with me," she went on in soft pleading tones, "don't think I distress you needlessly, I do so want you to hear me--to leave what I am saying to you in your mind. When I first told you that I had a presentiment that I had suffered my last sorrow, that all was to be peace for me henceforth, except in thinking of my child, you were not persuaded; you imputed it to the shock my nerves had received, and you think so still. It is not so indeed, even with respect to my child. I am tranquil and happy now; I don't know why, I cannot account for it. Nothing in the circumstances is susceptible of change, and I see those circumstances as clearly as I saw them when they first existed; but I am changed. I feel as if my vision had been enlarged; I feel as if the horizon had widened before me, and with the great space has come great calm--calm of mind--like what travellers tell us comes with the immense mountain solitudes, when all the world beneath looks little, and yet the great loneliness lifts one up nearer to heaven, and has no fear or trembling in it. I am ne her God not unquiet now, James, not even for the child. The wrong that I have done her God will right."
James Dugdale said hastily, "You have done her no conscious wrong, and all will be righted."
"Yes, I know; I am saying so; but not in our way, James, not as we--" she paused a very little, almost imperceptibly--"not as you would have it. But that it will be righted I have not the smallest doubt, not the least fear. You will remember, James, that I said to you the wrong I did my child will be righted."
"Remember!" he said in keen distress. "What do you mean, Margaret? Have you still the same presentiment? Is this your former talk with me over again?"
"Yes," she replied, "and no. When I talked with you before, I was troubled, sad, and afraid. Now I am neither sad, troubled, nor afraid."
"You are ill. There is something which you know and are hiding from us which makes you think and speak thus."
"No, indeed."
There was conviction in her tone, and he could but look at her and wait until she should speak again. She did not speak for a few moments, and then she resumed in a firm voice:
"I want to say to you all that is in my mind--at least as far as it can be said. I am not ill in any serious way, and I am not hiding anything which ought to be made known; and yet I do believe that I am not to live much longer in this world, and I acknowledge with a full heart that the richest portion of happiness ever given to a woman has been, is mine. When this trouble, the only one I have had in my new life, came to me, it changed me, and changed everything to me for a time; but the first effect is quite past, and the wound my pride received is healed. I don't think about that now; but I do think of the wonderful compensation, if I may dare to use a word which sounds like bringing God to a reckoning for His dealings with one of His creatures, which has been made to me, and I feel that I have lived all my days. The old presentiment that I had of evil to come to me from Australia, and its fulfilment, and the suffering and struggle, all are alike gone now, quieted down, and the peace has come which I do not believe anything is ever to disturb more."
"Margaret, Margaret!" he said, "I cannot bear this; you must not speak thus; if you persist in doing so, theremustbe some reason for it. It is not like you to have such morbid fancies."
"And it is not like you to misunderstand me," she interrupted gently. "Can you not see that I am telling you what is in my mind on what I believe will be my last day in my old home, because, if I am right, it will make you happy in the time to come to remember it?"
"Happy!" he repeated with impatience.
"Yes, happy! and if I am not right, and this is indeed but a morbid fancy, it will have done you no harm to hear it. You have listened to many a fancy of mine, dear old friend."
Tears gathered in her eyes now, and two large drops fell from the dark eyelashes unheeded.
"I have, I have," he said, "but to what fancies! How can you speak thus, Margaret? How can you think so calmly of leaving those who love you so much, those in whose love you confess you have found so much happiness? Your husband, your child, your father!"
"I cannot tell you," she said; "I cannot explain it, and because I cannot I am forced to believe it, to feel that it is so. The world seems far away from me somehow, even my own small precious world. You remember, when I spoke to you before, I told you how much I dreaded the effect of what had happened on myself, on my own feelings--how strangely the sense I have always had of being so much older than my husband, the dread of losing the power of enjoying the great happiness of my life, had seized hold of me?"
"I remember."
"Well," she continued, "all this fear has left me now--indeed, all fear of every kind, and the power of suffering, I think. When I think of the grief of those I shall have to leave, if my presentiment is realised, I don't shrink from it as I did when the first thought of the possible future came to me. After all, it is for such a little, little time."
Her eyes were raised upwards to the light, and a smile which the listener could not bear to see, and yet looked at--thinking, with the vain tenderness so fruitful in pangs of every kind and degree of intensity, that at least he never, never should be unable to recallthatlook--came brightly over her face, and slowly faded.
"O, no, Margaret; life is awfully long--hopelessly long."
"It seems so sometimes, but it has ceased to seem so to me. You must not grieve for what I am saying to you. If all is what you will think right with me, and we are here together again, you will be glad to think, to remember how I told you all that was in my heart; if it is otherwise, you will be far more than glad, James."
In his heart there arose at that moment a desperately strong, an almost irresistible longing to tell her now, for the first time and the last, how he had loved her all his life. But he resisted the longing--he was used to self-restraint--and said not a word which could trouble her peace.
They returned to the house shortly after, and went in by the drawing-room window. At the foot of the green slope Margaret paused for a minute, and looked with a smile at the open window of her room. A white curtain fluttered about it; there was a stir as of life in the room, but there was no one there.
"You will take care of the passion-flower, James?" she said. "I think the blossoms will be splendid this year."
A few hours later, and the house was deserted by all but James Dugdale. Hayes Meredith and his son had escorted Lady Davyntry to her own house, and gone on from thence to dine with the Croftons.
The first letter which James Dugdale received was from Margaret. She wrote in good spirits, and gave an amusing account of her father's delight with the Deane, and admiration--a little qualified by the difficulty of acknowledging at least its equality with his own--of Mr. Baldwin's collection, and his frequent expressions of surprise at finding the journey by no means so disagreeable or portentous an undertaking as he had expected. She was very well, except that she had taken cold.
A day or two later Lady Davyntry heard from her brother. Margaret was not so well; the cold was obstinate and exhausting; he deeply regretted her return to Scotland; only for the risk of travelling, he should take her away immediately. The next letter was not more reassuring, and Lady Davyntry made up her mind to go to Scotland without delay. In this resolution James Dugdale, with a sick and sinking heart, confirmed her. Not a word of actual danger was said in the letters which reached Davyntry daily, but the alarm which James felt was not slow to communicate itself to Eleanor.
"She has been delicate for a long time," said Lady Davyntry to James, "and very much more so latterly than she ever acknowledged."
In reply to her proposal to go at once to the Deane, Eleanor had an urgent letter of thanks from her brother. Margaret was not better--strangely weak indeed. Lady Davyntry was to start on the next day but one after the receipt of this letter, and James went over to Davyntry on the intervening day. He had a long interview with Eleanor, and, having left her, was walking wearily towards home, when he saw Hayes Meredith and Robert rapidly advancing to meet him. He quickened his pace, and they met where the footpath wound by the clump of beech-trees, once so distasteful in Margaret's sight. There was not a gleam of colour in Meredith's face, and as James came up the boy shrunk back behind his father.
"What's the matter?" said James, coming to a dead stop in front of Meredith.
"My dear fellow, you will need courage. Baldwin's valet has come from the Deane."
"Yes!" said James in a gasping voice.
"Margaret was much worse after Baldwin wrote, and the child--a girl--was born that afternoon. The child--"
"Is dead?" James tore his coat open as he asked the question, as if choking.
"No, my dear fellow"--his friend took his arm firmly within his own--"the poor child is alive, but Margaret is gone."
Lady Davyntry to James Dugdale.
"The Deane, March 17, 18--.
"MY DEAR MR. DUGDALE,--Your last letter, imposing upon me the task of advising my brother, in the sense of the conclusions arrived at by yourself and Mr. Meredith, gave me a great deal to think about. I could not answer it fully before, and I am sure the result which I have now to state to you will not, in reality, be displeasing to you, but I cannot uphold its soundness of wisdom, in a worldly sense, even to my own judgment--though it carries with it all my sympathies; and I am confident Mr. Meredith will entirely disapprove of it.
"I was obliged to be careful in selecting an opportunity for entering upon the discussion prescribed by your letter with Fitzwilliam. Since his great affliction fell upon him, he is not so gentle, so easy of access, as he used to be; and though he will sometimes talk freely to me of the past, the occasions must be of his own choosing. Hence the delay. I took the best means, as I thought, of making him understand the gravity and earnestness of the matter it was necessary he should consider--I read your letter to him. The mere hearing of it distressed him very much. He said, what I also felt, that he had not thought it could be possible to make him feel the loss of Margaret more deeply, but that the statement of his present position, so clear, so true, so indisputable, has made him feel it. He listened while I read the letter again, at his request, and then left me suddenly, saying he would tell me what to answer as soon as he could.
"Some days elapsed, and we saw very little of him--I perceived that one of his dark moods was upon him--and yesterday he came to me, to tell me to answer your letter. He took me to the sitting-room which was Margaret's, and where everything remains just as she left it on the last day that she came downstairs at the Deane. I suppose he felt that I could understand his decision more clearly, and be less inclined to listen to all the reasons which render it unwise, when everything around should speak of her whose undimmed memory dictated it.
"The sum of what he said to me--with many strayings from the matter, and so much revival of the past in all its first bitterness, that I was astonished, such a faculty of grief being rarely seen in a man--was this. He cannot bring himself to contemplate, as you and Mr. Meredith are agreed he ought, a second marriage. As nearly as possible, this was what he said:
"When we found out the wrong which had been innocently done to Gertrude, we hoped, indeed we were so persuaded, that the child we were expecting would be a boy, and the wrong be thus righted, that we never looked beyond the birth of the child, or discussed the future in any way with reference to a disappointment in that particular. The child would be the heir, and Gertrude's future would be safe, rich, and prosperous. Such were our dreams-and when the fearful awakening came, it was some time before I understood all it meant. It was weeks before I remembered that the wrong done to the child my Margaret had loved so much, that she broke her heart because that wrong had been done, could never be righted now. It was very long before the thought occurred to me that those to whom this dreadful truth was known would perceive that a second marriage, by giving me the chance of a male heir, and thus putting the two children on an equal footing in the eyes of the world, would afford me the only means of avoiding injustice to Eleanor."
"Here he stopped, and said he suffered equally about both children, for the youngest had also sustained the greatest loss of all. Then he continued:
"'I did think of this sometimes, but with horror, and a full knowledge that though it would be a just and wise thing in one sense for the interests of my children, it would be unjust and unwise towards them and myself, and any woman whom I might induce to marry me, in another. I daresay you will think I am talking nonsense, forgetting the influence, which, however slow, is always sure, of the lapse of time--forgetting that others have been heavily bereaved and yet have found consolation, and even come to know much happiness again--when I tell you that I never could take the slightest interest in any woman any more. Well, supposing I am wrong there--I don't think I can be; there is something in my inmost heart which tells me I am right--we are dealing now not with the future, but with the present. James is right in pointing out that I must make up my mind to some course, and I am glad Meredith is still interested in me and in the children's future. Time may alter my state of mind, but if it does, no arrangements made now will be irrevocable.
"'But, as my life is uncertain, I am not justified in allowing any more time to go by, without providing, as well as I can, for the contingencies which may arise. Tell James I am deeply impressed with the truth of this, and the strong necessity of acting on all he and Meredith have set before me, though I cannot act upon it in the way in which they prescribe. For the present--and you will not need to be assured that I am not regardless of what Margaret would wish--I must only make all the reparation which money can make to Eleanor.'
"Then Fitzwilliam entered into a full explanation of the position of the estate, and gave me the enclosed memorandum, which he wishes you and Mr. Meredith to see, and showed me how the ready money he can leave to Eleanor, and the income, apart from the entailed estate, which he can settle on her, in reality amount to within two thousand a year of the income which must come to Gertrude as heir of entail. To this purpose he intends to devote all this money, his great object being to render the position of his children as nearly equal as possible, and so reduce the unintentional injustice done to Eleanor, and the wrong, now past atonement, inflicted on Gertrude, to such small dimensions as may relieve him from any suffering on the subject.
"He has requested that no portion of Mr. Carteret's property should be left to either of the children. They will be rich enough, and he considers, very justly, that Haldane's children will have a superior claim on Mr. Carteret, who was feverishly anxious, Fitzwilliam tells me, to have all his affairs settled; when he spoke to him, he did not like this idea at all, he is so much attached to little Gertrude; but when my brother told him he knew it would have been Margaret's wish that her brother should have all it was in their father's power to give, he was satisfied, and promised that it should be so.
"In telling you this, I daresay I am repeating what is already known to you; but I give it its place in the conversation between us, as bearing upon the point that the only way in which the past can now be repaired, is by securing to the children as much equality in money matters as possible.
"As a branch of this subject, I may tell you that the future disposition of my property has been discussed between us. In Davyntry I have, as I daresay you know, only a life-interest, and the money of which I have to dispose comes to me from my father. It is six hundred a year, and I shall at once make my will in favour of Eleanor. Thus the inequality in the fortunes of the girls will be decreased, and Fitzwilliam is much less likely than ever to live up to his income. The girls will both be very rich heiresses, no doubt, and I do not think any of us who are in the secret need feel that the advantage to Gerty of appearing as the heiress of the Deane is very material.
"Her father feels very deeply the condition of the entail which prescribed that she must bear her own name, her husband being obliged to assume it. There is a sting in that which you will thoroughly comprehend. He asked me if I thought that remembrance had contributed to the pain which Margaret had suffered about this calamity, but I could assure him conscientiously that I did not think it had ever occurred to her. The child was so mere an infant, and the strong hope and expectation, disappointed by Eleanor's birth, possessed them so completely, that money matters, in connection with the future, were never discussed between them. He confirmed me in this. They never were; and now it is a keen source of regret to him, because, he says, he should be fortified by the knowledge of how she would have desired he should act, under the present circumstances.
"Poor fellow! I listened to him, seriously of course; but, sad as it was, I could hardly keep from smiling at the way in which he confounds the present with the past, forgetting that he had no fear, no misgivings, no presentiment, and therefore that no reason existed for such a discussion. All this will appear impracticable to Mr. Meredith, but he will have patience with my brother; he saw enough of what their life together was, to understand, in some degree, the immeasurable loss. My ignorance of all that had occurred, at the time of Margaret's death, is, perhaps, regrettable on this score, that I might have gotten at more of her mind than, for his sake, she would have betrayed to him; but it is too late now to repair that ignorance, and we must only do the best we can in the children's interests.
"Keeping in view the change time may produce--that my brother is still a young man, and that a second marriage may not always be so repugnant to him as it is at present--I think we may rest satisfied in having induced him to contemplate, and, no doubt, as soon as possible to make, a proper disposition of his property. As for the children, they are as happy as little unconscious creatures like them can be, and I Where is there a second Margaret to be found?
"Fitzwilliam spoke to me very freely on this point. He could not pretend to any woman that he loved her; and as, in that case, his second wife must necessarily marry him for mercenary motives, could he regard any woman who would do so as a fitting representative of their mother to his children--could he make her even tolerably happy, thus entering upon a life in which there could be no mutual respect? Such arguments are all-powerful with a woman, especially with me; for I know how pure, how disinterested, our lost Margaret's feelings and motives in her marriage were, and remember only too well seeing how they were realised--the doubt and dread she expressed when she first recognised the prospect for the future which lay before her. How wonderful and dreadful it seems to speak of her thus in the past, to refer to that which seemed so completely all in all to us then, and is now gone for ever!
"My brother is content with the care the children have from me, and, far more effectually, from Rose. Time teaches me her value more and more forcibly, and I am more and more thankful that, in the blackest and worst time of our distress, you suggested her being sent for. How strange and fortunate that Margaret had given you a clue to what her wishes would have been! Neither Fitzwilliam nor I would have thought of her; indeed, I had entirely forgotten the 'Irish-Australian importation of Margaret's,' as I once heard poor Mrs. Carteret speak of her. She is a comfort to us all past describing.
"I do not know whether Fitzwilliam has told you that Terence Doran, Rose's husband, is coming to him in a month as factor. He is a very clever young man, we understand, and, though well placed in Ireland, willing to come here, for his wife's sake, to enable her to remain with the children. I have no intention of leaving the Deane for the present. Fitzwilliam seems restless; he does not say so, but I fancy he wishes to go abroad again. I should not be surprised if he started off soon on some prolonged tour.
"You ask me about the children. Before I reply to your questions, let me tell you how sorry we all are that there is no chance of our seeing you here. We understand, of course, that the state of your own health, and the duty you feel imposed upon you with regard to poor Mr. Carteret, to whom it would be naturally most distasteful to come here, furnish indisputable reasons for your absence, but we do not the less regret it. I infer from the news that Mr. Meredith means to leave England next month, that he has satisfactorily brought all his business to a conclusion. His return will be a great boon to his family. An absence which, by the time he reaches Melbourne, will have been prolonged to nearly two years, is a terrible slice out of this short mortal life. I suppose all the arrangements made for his son have succeeded to his satisfaction, and that you, with your invariable kindness, have undertaken the supervision of the boy.
"And now, about the children. Gertrude is a fine child, very like Margaret in face, and, so far as one can judge of so young a child, of a nice disposition, rather grave and sensitive. Her father idolises her; he is never weary of the little girl's company, and I can see that he is always tracing the likeness to the face hidden from him for a while. Little Eleanor is delicate and peevish; indeed, if it be not foolish to say so of an infant, I should say she is of a passionate nature; she is not so pretty as Gertrude, but has large brown eyes, quite unlike either her sister or her poor mother. She is Rose Doran's favourite, and I can trace sometimes, in her candid Irish face, some surprise and displeasure when she notices my brother's intense affection for the elder girl. She has no knowledge of anything which makes the child an object of compassionate love to the father."
"MARCH 18.
/
"When I had written so far, I was interrupted by Fitzwilliam. He brought me a letter which he has written to Mr. Janvrin, of Lincoln's Inn, his solicitor, and which contains instructions for the drawing up of a will according to the plan I have mentioned. He wishes me to recapitulate to you what would be the children's positions in the event of his death, unmarried, and not having revoked this will.
"Gertrude would succeed to all the entailed property, chargeable, as in Fitzwilliam's case, with a provision for her younger children.
"Eleanor would have all the savings from the general income up to the time of her father's death, and all such property as is not included in the entail.
"Haldane Carteret and I are named as the guardians and trustees, and my brother signifies his wish that his children should reside alternately with either Mrs. Carteret or me, according to the general convenience.
"Will you kindly communicate this to Mr. Meredith, together with my personal acknowledgment of the kind interest he has taken in us all during the sorrowful period of his stay in England?
"Always, my dear Mr. Dugdale, most faithfully yours,
"ELEANOR DAVYNTRY."
James Dugdale to Lady Davyntry.
"CHAYLEIGH, MARCH 20.
"MY DEAR LADY DAVYNTRY,--I have to thank you for your kind and explanatory letter. I never expected Baldwin to take the view of the matter on which I wrote to you which Meredith takes. Meredith is so much more of a man of the world than I am, has so much longer a head, and so much sounder judgment, that I could not hesitate to transmit to you and Baldwin his views, in which the world, could it know what we are so unfortunate as to know, would no doubt recognise reason and force. Well, we too recognise them, but that is all.
"All the dispositions which you tell me Baldwin has made are admirable under the circumstances, and considering his determination, which I do not think is likely to yield to the influence of time, which cannot restore her who was lost, and will, I am convinced, but increase his appreciation of the extent and severity of that loss. Gertrude gains only in name and appearance, and does her sister no real injury. I have often thought how terrible Baldwin's position would have been had not Eleanor lived. Then he must either have married again, or done an injury to the heir of entail by permitting Gertrude to succeed. Meredith was asking me about the succession, but I could not tell him. I fancy I heard, but I don't remember where, when, or how, that the next heir is a distant relative, with whom Baldwin is not acquainted.
"Mr. Carteret had told me, before I received your letter, Baldwin's wishes about his will, and that he intended to comply with them. The only legacy Gertrude will inherit from her grandfather is the unfinished portrait which you brought from Naples. He never mentioned it, or seemed to notice that I had had it unpacked and placed in the study, until the day on which he mentioned Baldwin's request, and then he looked at it, quite a fond, quiet smile. The calm, the impassability of old age is coming over him, fortunately for him.
"But while I perfectly understand the force and approve the object of the representation which Baldwin has made to Mr. Carteret, and while I heartily approve the reason and the generosity of the disposition you intend making of such portion of your property as is within your power, I do not think I am bound by similar restrictions. Partly because the little I possess is so small, so utterly trivial and unimportant, in comparison with the handsome fortune, which the measures Baldwin is taking will secure, with your assistance, to Eleanor; and partly because I feel towards the elder child in a peculiar way, almost inexplicable to myself--I intend to bequeath to Gertrude the small sum I possess the power of bequeathing.
"She shall have it when I am gone, and it shall be left at her free and uncontrolled disposition; it will add a little yearly sum to her pleasures, or, if she be as like her mother in her nature as in her face, to her charities. It will be a great pleasure to me to know that Gertrude, whose splendid inheritance will come to her by a real though guiltless error, will at least have that small heritage in her own real undisputable right--not as the heiress of anything or any one, only as Margaret's child.
"I am so glad to know what you tell me concerning Rose Doran. She was always a good, genuine creature, and it is almost as rare as it is pleasant to anticipate excellence and not to be disappointed. Baldwin should be careful, however, of annoying her by displaying too marked a preference for Gerty. Rose is a very shrewd person, and in her impulsive Irish mind the process, which should make her suspicious of a reason for this preference, and jealous for the child whose life cost that of her mother, would not be a difficult one.
"Meredith's plans are unchanged. He has every reason to be satisfied with the arrangements made for Robert. I have no doubt the boy will do well. He wants neither ability nor application; I wish he had as much heart and as much frankness. Davyntry is looking very well, lonely, of course, but well taken care of; I ramble about there almost every day. Haldane and his wife are expected next week at the Croftons.
"Yours, dear Lady Davyntry, always truly,
"JAMES DUGDALE."
Hayes Meredith to Fitzwilliam Meriton Baldwin>.
"CHAYLEIGH, APRIL 2.
"MY DER BALDWIN,--I am off in a short time now, and this is to say good-bye--most likely for ever. At my time of life I am not likely to get back to England again, unless, indeed, I should make a fortune by some very unlikely hazard, of which not the faintest indication appears at present.
"I am very much obliged to you for letting me know all the arrangements you have made. I am sure you know my feeling in the matter was interest, not curiosity, and though not only the safest, surest, speediest, but also the most natural and agreeable way of putting an end to your difficulties appeared to me to be a second marriage, I am not going to blame you because you don't think so. I know the difficulties of the position, but, after all, you inflict a mere technical wrong on one sister, while you make up for it by endowing her with a much larger fortune than she would have had, had her real position been what her apparent one is--that of a younger child.
"From what you say of the amount of the savings which you expect to leave to Eleanor, I should think she would be little less rich than Gertrude, and without the burden of a large landed estate and establishment to keep up--also enjoying the immense advantage of being able to dispose of her property as she chooses, an advantage which Gertrude will not enjoy, and which, with my colonial ideas, I am disposed to estimate very highly indeed.
"I have so many kindnesses and attentions to thank you for, that I must put all my acknowledgments into this one, and beg you to believe that I feel them deeply. The most welcome of all the acts of friendship I have received from you is your promise not to lose sight of Robert. He will get on well, I think. If he does not, his heart will be more in fault than his head, in my belief.
"As to O----, I hardly know what to think of your proposal. I doubt its being altogether safe to open communications voluntarily with a man of his sort. He is so very likely, after his kind, to impute some bad, or at least suspicious motive to an act of charity which I should not be disposed to give him credit for understanding or believing in. The least danger we should have to fear would be his establishing himself as a regular pensioner in consideration of your aid extended to him in so inexplicable a fashion.
"But, beyond this, there is more to apprehend. I think I told you he knew nothing of M----, not even her former name, nor her destination in England. If he receives a sum of money from you, he will naturally make inquiries about you, and there will be no means of keeping the required information from him. Once supply him with a clue to any connection between you and his worthy comrade deceased, and O---- must be very unlike the man I believe him to be, and must have profited very insufficiently by such companionship, if he does not see his way to a profitable secret, and the chance ofchantage, in a very short time. This is the risk I foresee, and which I should not like to run.
"At the same time, I understand the feeling which has dictated the proposition you make to me, and I can quite believe, remembering her noble nature so well as I do remember it, that M---- would, as you suppose, have been glad to rescue from want the man to whom H---- owed, after all, relief in his last days, if to him she also owed the knowledge of her sorrow. I propose therefore (subject to your approval), when I arrive at Melbourne, to inquire, with judicious caution, into what has become of O----, and if I find him living and in distress, to assist him to a limited extent, provided he is not quite so incorrigible a scoundrel as that assisting him would be enabling him to prey on society on a larger and more successful scale.
"I would suggest, however, that under no circumstances should he be told that the money comes from you. I shall be credited, if I find him a proper object or anything short of an entirely unjustifiable object for your bounty, with a charitable action, which it certainly never would have come into my head to perform; but I am quite willing, if it gives you any pleasure or consolation, to carry the burden of undeserved praise and such gratitude as is to be expected from O----, not a very oppressive quantity, I fancy.
"I am glad to hear good news of you all from Dugdale. And now, my dear Baldwin, nothing remains for me to say, except that which cannot be written. Farewell. We shall hear how the world wags for each of us through Dugdale.
"Yours faithfully,
quot;HAYES MEREDITH."
Mrs. Haldane Carteret to Miss Crofton.
c"CHAYLEIGH, APRIL 18.
"MY DEAR MINNIE,--I promised to write to you as soon as I arrived here, but I have been so busy, finding myself in a manner at home, andtant soit peumistress of the house, that I could not manage it. No doubt you find it desperately dull at school, but then you are coming out after a while, and the vacation is not far off--and I can assure you I am almost as dull here as you are. I have my own way in everything, to be sure; but then that is not of much use, unless one has something in view which it is worth while to be persistent about. And really the old gentleman, though he is a dear nice old thing and sweet-tempered to a degree, is very tiresome.
"You know, of course, from mamma's letter, that Haldane is not coming for a week or two. He has to remain in London to meet Mr. Baldwin on somevery importantbusiness. I believe it is simply that Haldane is to be made trustee and guardian to our little nieces, if their father dies, and that cannot be anything very particular; but then, you know, there never were such children. (I am sure I shall not wish mine to be made such a fuss with, not that it is in the least likely.) Everything that concerns them must be fussed and bothered about in the most intolerable way.
"A great deal of this is Lady Davyntry's fault; I must say, though she and I are the greatest friends--as such near relations ought to be--she does worry me sometimes. However, she is not here to worry me now; she is at the Deane, and writes to Mr. Carteret almost every day, of course about nothing but the children. If they are made so much of now when they are infants, what will it be when they are grown up enough to understand, and be utterly spoiled by it, as of course they must be? It would not be easy to imagine worse training for the heiresses; however, you don't want me to moralise about them, but to tell you some news. And so I would, my dear Minnie, if I had any to tell, but I have not.
"Mr. Dugdale is, if possible, less amusing than ever: but I see very little of him. He has installed himself in poor Margaret's room--fortunately for me it is not the best room, as I suspect I should have had some difficulty in making him decamp, for he is excessively pertinacious in a quiet way, and as for Mr. Carteret interfering, one might as well expect one of his pinned butterflies to stand up for one's rights; so there he generally is, except at meal-times, or when he is wandering about at Davyntry. The fact is, the house, and every one in it, is be-Baldwinised to an intolerable extent.
"Of course I was dreadfully sorry for poor dear Margaret. I must have been, considering she was my sister-in-law, if even she had not been my greatest friend; but there is reason in everything, and I should not be doing my duty to Haldane if I went on fretting for ever; there's nothing men dislike so much in women as moping, or an over-exhibition of feeling. I assure you if she had died only last week--and after all, the melancholy event took place at the Deane, you know, and not here at all--the house could not be more mopey.
"I don't think it is quite fair to me, considering the state of my health, and that my spirits naturally require a little rousing; and really sometimes, when I can get nothing out of Mr. Carteret but 'Yes, my dear,' or 'No, my dear,' and when I know he is thinking rather of Margaret or of the collection--such a lot of trash as it is, and it takes up such a quantity of room--I am quite provoked. And as for Mr. Dugdale, it is worse; for though he is very polite, I declare I don't think he ever really sees me, and I am sure, if he was asked suddenly, on oath, he could not tell whether my hair is red, black, or gray. Anditis a nuisance when there are only two men in the house with one that they should be men of that sort.
"I don't suppose it will be much better when Haldane comes, for I fancy there is not the faintest chance of any company; nothing but Carteret and Crofton, Crofton and Carteret,--after a whole year, too, it is a little too bad. I have slipped out of mourning, though, that's a comfort. You know I never looked well in black, and it is notthe dressafter all, is it? Haldane thought I might go on with grays and lilacs, but mourning, however slight, is not considered lucky, and though I am not at all superstitious myself, it would never do to offend other people's prejudices, would it?
quot;There is really nothing to look forward to until you come home, except, perhaps, a visit from Robert Meredith; and he is only a boy; but he is very clever and amusing, and greatly inclined to make a fool of himself about me. Of course it would not do to encourage him if he were older; but it does me no harm, and keeps him out of mischief. His father has sailed for Melbourne. I really have no more to say, as of course you get all the home news from mamma.--Your affectionate sister,
"LUCY CARTERET.
"P.S. I have just heard from Haldane. It is almost settled that he is to leave the army. Mr. Baldwin is going in a few days to the East, and intends to be away for three years at the least."