It was a dull, lowering October day, sky and sea alike lead-coloured, when the boat that bore Grenfell rounded the southern point of Arran, and opened a view of the island in all its extent. His first visit there had not left any favourable impressions of the place, though then he saw it in sunshine, warm-tinted and softened; now all was hard, bleak, and cold, and the ruined Abbey stood out amongst the leafless trees, like the ghost of a civilisation long dead and buried.
“There he is himself, Sir,” said the steersman to Grenfell, as he pointed to a lone rock on the extreme point of a promontory. “You’d think he was paid for sitting there, to watch all the vessels that go north about to America. He can see every craft, big and little, from Belmullet to Craig’s Creek.”
“And does he stay there in bad weather?”
“I never missed him any day I came by, no matter how hard it blew.”
“It’s a dreary look-out.”
“Indeed it is, your honour! more by token, when a man has a comfortable house and a good fire to sit at, as Mr. Luttrell has, if he liked it.”
“Perhaps he thinks it less lonely to sit there than to mope over his hearth by himself. He lives all alone, I believe?”
“He does, Sir; and it’s what he likes best. I took a party of gentlemen over from Westport last summer; they wanted to see the curiosities of the place, and look at the old Abbey, and they sent me up with a civil message, to say what they came for and who they were—one of them was a lord—and what d’ye think, Sir? instead of being glad to see the face of a Christian, and having a bit of chat over what was doing beyond there, he says to me, ‘Barny Moore,’ says he, ‘you want to make a trade,’ says he, ‘of showing me like a wild baste; but I know your landlord, Mr. Creagh, and as sure as my name’s John Luttrell,’ says he, I’ll have you turned out of your holding; so just take your friends and yourself off the way you came!’ And when I told the gentlemen, they took it mighty good humoured, and only said, ‘After all, if a man comes so far as this for quietness, it’s rather hard if he wouldn’t get it;’ and we went off that night. I’m tellin’ your honour this,” added he, in a low, confidential tone, “because, if he asks you what boat you came in, you would say it was Tom M’Caffray’s—that man there in the bow—he’s from Kilrush, and a stranger; for I wouldn’t put it past John Luttrell to do me harm, if I crossed him.”
“But, is he not certain to see you?”
“No, Sir; not if I don’t put myself in his way. Look now, Sir, look, he’s off already?”
“Off! whereto?”
“To the Abbey, Sir, to bar himself in. He saw that the yawl was coming in to anchor, and he’ll not look back now till he’s safe in his own four walls.”
“But I want to speak with him—is it likely he’ll refuse to see me?”
“Just as-like as not. May I never! but he’s running, he’s so afeard we’ll be on shore before he gets in.”
At no time had Grenfell been much in love with his mission; he was still less pleased with it as he stepped on the shingly shore, and turned to make his way over a pathless waste to the Abbey. He walked slowly along, conning over to himself what he had got to do, and how he should do it. “At all events,” thought he, “the more boorish and uncivil the man may be, the less demand will be made on me for courtesy. If he be rude, I can be concise; nor need I have any hesitation in showing him that I never volunteered for this expedition, and only came because Vyner begged me to come.”
He had seen no one since he left the boat, and even now, as he arrived close to the house, no living thing appeared. He walked round on one side. It was the side of the old aisle, and there was no door to be found. He turned to the other, and found his progress interrupted by a low hedge, looking over which he fancied he saw an entrance. He stepped, therefore, over the enclosure; but, by the noise of the smashing twigs a dog was aroused, a wild, wolfish-looking animal, that rushed fiercely at him with a yelping bark. Grenfell stood fast, and prepared to defend himself with a strong stick, when suddenly a harsh voice cried out, “Morrah! come back, Morrah! Don’t strike the dog, Sir, or he’ll tear you to pieces!” And then a tall, thin man, much stooped in the shoulders, and miserably dressed, came forward, and motioned the dog to retire.
“Is he savage?” said Grenfell.
“Not savage enough to keep off intruders, it seems,” was the uncourteous
reply. “Is your business with me, Sir?”
“If I speak to Mr. Luttrell, it is.”
“My name is Luttrell.”
“Mine is Grenfell; but I may be better known as the friend of your old friend, Sir Gervais Vyner.”
“Grenfell—Grenfell! to be sure. I know the name—we all know it,” said Luttrell, with a sort of sneer. “Is Vyner come—is he with you?”
“No, Sir,” said Grenfell, smarting under the sting of what he felt to be an insult. “It is because he could not come that he asked me to see you.”
Luttrell made no reply, but stood waiting for the other to continue.
“I have come on a gloomy errand, Mr. Luttrell, and wish you would prepare yourself to hear very, very sad news.”
“What do you call prepare?” cried Luttrell, in a voice almost a shriek. “I know of nothing that prepares a man for misfortune except its frequency,” muttered he, in a low tone. “What is it? Is it of Harry—of my boy?”
Grenfell nodded.
“Wait,” said Luttrell, pressing his hand over his brow. “Let me go in. No, Sir; I can walk without help.” He grasped the door-post as he spoke, and stumbling onward, clutching the different objects as he went, gained a chair, and sank into it. “Tell me now,” said he, in a faint whisper.
“Be calm, Mr. Luttrell,” said Grenfell, gently. “I have no need to say, take courage.”
Luttrell stared vacantly at him, his lips parted, and his whole expression that of one who was stunned and overcome. “Go on,” said he, in a hoarse whisper—“go on.”
“Compose yourself first,” said Grenfell.
“Is Harry—is he dead?”
Grenfell made a faint motion of his head.
“There—leave me—let me be alone!” said Luttrell, pointing to the door; and his words were spoken in a stern and imperative tone.
Grenfell waited for a few seconds, and then withdrew noiselessly, and strolled out into the open air.
“A dreary mission and a drearier spot!” said he, as he sauntered along, turning his eyes from the mountain, half hid in mist, to the lowering sea. “One would imagine that he who lived here must have little love of life, or little care how others fared in it.” After walking about a mile he sat down on a rock, and began to consider what further remained for him to do. To pass an entire day in such a place was more than he could endure; and, perhaps, more than Luttrell himself would wish. Vyner’s letter and its enclosures would convey all the sorrowful details of the calamity; and, doubtless, Luttrell was a man who would not expose his grief, but give free course to it in secret.
He resolved, therefore, that he would go back to the Abbey, and, with a few lines from himself, enclose these papers to Luttrell, stating that he would not leave the island, which it was his intention to have done that night, if Luttrell desired to see him again, and at the same time adding, that he possessed no other information but such as these documents afforded. This he did, to avoid, if it could be, another interview. In a word, he wanted to finish all that he had to do as speedily as might be, and yet omit nothing that decorum required. He knew how Vyner would question and cross-question him, besides; and he desired, that as he had taken the trouble to come, he should appear to have acquitted himself creditably.
“The room is ready for your honour,” said Molly, as Grenfell appeared again at the door; “and the master said that your honour would order dinner whenever you liked, and excuse himself to-day, by rayson he wasn’t well.”
“Thank you,” said Grenfell; “I will step in and write a few words to your master, and you will bring me the answer here.”
Half a dozen lines sufficed for all he had to say, and, enclosing the other documents, he sat down to await the reply.
In less time than he expected, the door opened. Luttrell himself appeared. Wretched and careworn as he seemed before, a dozen years of suffering could scarcely have made more impress on him than that last hour: clammy sweat covered his brow and cheeks, and his white lips trembled unceasingly; but in nothing was the change greater than in his eye. All its proud defiance was gone; the fierce energy had passed away, and its look was now one of weariness and exhaustion. He sat down in front of Grenfell, and for a minute or so did not speak. At last he said:
“You will wish to get back—to get away from this dreary place; do not remain onmyaccount. Tell Vyner I will try and go over to him. He’s in Wales, isn’t he?”
“No; he is in Italy.”
“In Italy! I cannot go so far,” said he, with a deep sigh.
“I was not willing to obtrude other sorrows in the midst of your own heavier one; but you will hear the news in a day or two, perhaps, that our poor friend Vyner has lost everything he had in the world.”
“Is his daughter dead?” gasped out Luttrell, eagerly.
“No; I spoke of his fortune; his whole estate is gone.”
“That is sad, very sad,” sighed Luttrell; “but not the saddest! One may be poor and hope; one may be sick, almost to the last, and hope; one may be bereft of friends, and yet think that better days will come; but to be childless—to be robbed of that which was to have treasured your memory when you passed away, and think lovingly on you years after you were dust—this is the great, the great affliction!” As he spoke, the large tears rolled down his face, and his lank cheeks trembled. “None will know this better than Vyner,” said he, after a pause.
“You do him no more than justice; he thought little of his own misfortune in presence of yours.”
“It was like him.”
“May I read you his own words?”
“No; it is enough that I know his heart. Go back, and say I thank him. It was thoughtful of him at such a time to remember me; few but himself could have done it!” He paused for a few seconds, and then in a stronger, fuller voice continued: “Tell him to send this sailor to me; he may live here, if he will. At all events, he shall not want, wherever he goes. Vyner will ask you how I bore this blow, Sir. I trust to you to say the strict truth, that I bore it well. Is that not so?” Grenfell bowed his head slightly. “Bore it,” continued Luttrell, “as a man may, who now can defy Fortune, and say, ‘See, you have laid your heaviest load on me, and I do not even stagger under it!’ Remember, Sir, that you tell Vyner that. That I listened to the darkest news a man can hear, and never so much as winced. There is no fever in that hand, Sir; touch it!”
“I had rather that you would not make this effort, Mr. Luttrell. I had far rather tell my friend that your grief was taking the course that nature meant for it.”
“Sir!” said Luttrell, haughtily, “it is not to-day that misfortune and I have made acquaintance. Sorrow has sat at my hearth-stone—my one companion—for many a year! I knew no other guest, and had any other come, I would not have known how to receive him! Look around you and say, is it to such a place as this a man comes if the world has gone well with him?”
“It is not yet too late——”
“Yes, it is, Sir; far too late,” broke in Luttrell, impatiently. “I know my own nature better than you ever knew it. Forgive me, if I am rude. Misery has robbed me of all—even the manners of a gentleman. It would be only a mockery to offer you such hospitality as I have here, but if, before leaving, you would eat something——”
Grenfell made some hurried excuses; he had eaten on board the boat—he was not hungry—-and he was impatient to get back in time for the morning mail.
“Of course, no one could wish to tarry here,” said Luttrell. “Tell Vyner I will try and write to him, if not soon, when I can. Good-by, Sir! You have been very kind to me, and I thank you.”
Grenfell shook his cold hand and turned away, more moved, perhaps, than if he had witnessed a greater show of sorrow. Scarcely, however, had he closed the door after him, than a dull, heavy sound startled him. He opened the door softly, and saw that Luttrell had fallen on the ground, and with his hands over his face lay sobbing in all the bitterness of intense grief. Grenfell retired noiselessly and unseen. It was a sorrow that none should witness; and, worldling as he was, he felt it. He stopped twice on his way down to the shore, uncertain whether he ought not to go back, and try to comfort that desolate man. But how comfort him? How speak of hope to one who mocked all hope, and actually seemed to cling to his misery?
“They cry out against the worldling, and rail at his egotism, and the rest of it,” muttered he; “but the selfishness that withdraws from all contact with others, is a hundred times worse! Had that man lived in town, and had his club to stroll down to, the morning papers would have shown him that he was not more unlucky than his fellows, and that a large proportion of his acquaintances carried crape on their hats, whether they had sorrow in their hearts or not.”
It was with a mind relieved that he reached Holyhead the next day, and set out for the Cottage. Vyner had begged him to secure certain papers and letters of his that were there; and for this purpose he turned off on his way to town to visit Dinasllyn for the last time.
“The young gentleman went away the night you left, Sir,” said Rickards, without being questioned; “but he came over this morning to ask if you had returned.”
“What news of the young lady who was so ill at Dalradern?”
“Out of danger, Sir. The London doctor was the saving of her life, Sir; he has ordered her to the sea-side as soon as she is fit to move, and Sir Within sent off Carter yesterday to Milford Haven, to take the handsomest house he can find there, and never think of the cost.”
“Rich men can do these things, Rickards!”
“Yes, Sir. Sir Within and my master haven’t to ask what’s the price when an article strikes their fancy.”
Grenfell looked to see if the remark was intended to explode a mine, or a mere chance shot. The stolid face of the butler reassured him in an instant, and he said, “I shall want candles in the library, and you will call me to-morrow early—say seven.”
When Grenfell had covered the library table with papers and parchments innumerable, title-deeds of centuries old, and grants from the Crown to Vyner’s ancestors in different reigns, he could not restrain a passionate invective against the man who had, out of mere levity, forfeited a noble fortune.
Contemptible as young Ladarelle was—mean, low-lived, and vulgar—the fellow’s ambition to be rich, the desire to have the power that wealth confers, raised him in Grenfell’s esteem above “that weak-minded enthusiast “—so he called him—who must needs beggar himself, because he had nothing to do.
He emptied drawer after drawer, burning, as Vyner had bade him, rolls of letters, parliamentary papers, and such-like, till, in tossing over heaps of rubbish, he came upon a piece of stout card-board, and on turning it about saw the sketch Vyner had made of the Irish peasant child in Donegal. Who was it so like? Surely he knew that expression, the peculiar look of the eyes, sad and thoughtful, and yet defiant? He went over in his mind one after another of those town-bred beauties he had met in the season, when, suddenly, he exclaimed, “What a fool I have been all this time. It is the girl at Dalradern, the ‘ward,’”—here he laughed in derision—“the ‘ward’ of Sir Within Wardle. Ay, and she knewme, too, I could swear. All her evasive answers about Ireland show it.” He turned hastily to Vyner’s letter, and surmised that it was to this very point he was coming, when the news of young Luttrell’s death was brought him. “What can be her position now, and how came she beneath that old man’s roof? With what craft and what boldness she played her game! The girl who has head enough for that, has cleverness to know that I am not a man to be despised. She should have made me her friend at once. Who could counsel her so well, or tell her the shoals and quicksands before her? She ought to have done this, and she shall, too. I will go over to-morrow to Dalradern; I will take her this sketch; we shall see if it will not be a bond of friendship between us.”
When, true to the pledge he had made with himself, he went oyer to Dalradern the next morning, it was to discover that Sir Within and his ward had taken their departure two hours before. The servants were busily engaged in dismantling the rooms, and preparing to close the Castle against all visitors.
To his inquiries, ingenious enough, he could get no satisfactory answer as to the direction they had gone, or to what time their absence might be protracted, and Grenfell, disappointed and baffled, returned to the Cottage to pass his last evening, ere he quitted it for ever.
Towards the close of a day in the late autumn, when the declining sun was throwing a long column of golden light over the sea, a little group was gathered on the shore at Ostend, the last, it seemed, of all the summer visitors who had repaired there for the season. The group consisted of a young girl, whose attitude, as she lay reclined in a bath-chair, bespoke extreme debility, and an old man who stood at her side, directing her attention, as his gestures indicated, to different objects in the landscape.
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Two servants in livery, and a somewhat demurely-dressed maid, stood at a little distance off, in deferential attendance on the others.
Greatly changed, indeed paler and thinner, with dark circles round the eyes, and a faint hectic spot on each cheek, Kate O’Hara looked even more beautiful than ever; the extreme delicacy of every lineament, the faultless regularity of outline, were as conspicuous now, as before was that brightness which she derived from expression. If her eyes had no longer their look of haughty and defiant meaning, they seemed to have acquired a greater depth of colour and an expression of intense softness, and her lips, so ready once to curl into mockery at a moment, now appeared as if they faintly stirred with a smile, as some fancy crossed her.
She was dressed in deep mourning, which heightened still more the statue-like character of her features. What a contrast to this placid loveliness was the careworn, feverish look of the old man at her side! Sir Within had aged by years within a few weeks, and in the anxious expression of his face, and his quick uneasy glances around him, might be read the fretful conflict of hope and fear within him.
While he continued to speak, and describe the features of the scene before them, though she smiled at times, or assented by a slight gesture of the head, her mind was wandering—far, far away—to other thoughts and other places, and her fingers played feverishly with a letter, which she opened and closed up again time after time.
“I am afraid, Ma Mie,” said he, with a tone of half reproach, “that your letter there has usurped all your interest, and my eloquence as Cicerone gone quite for nothing.”
“No, Gardy, I heard you with much pleasure. What did you say that rock was called?”
“That rock, Mademoiselle,” said he, dryly, “is a wreck, and I was vain enough to have believed that my narrative of the incident had moved you.”
“I am so weak, Gardy, so very weak,” said she, plaintively, as she laid her hand on the back of his, “that I follow anything with difficulty.”
“My sweet child, how cruel of me to forget it. Are we lingering too long on these sands?”
“Oh no; let us stay here some time longer. I want to see the sun go down, it is so long since I saw a sunset.”
He drew her shawl around her carefully, and sheltered her with his umbrella against the scarcely breathing wind.
“How kind you are, how good,” said she, softly; and then, with a playful lightness, added, “how courtier-like, too.”
“Why courtier-like, Ma Mie?” said he.
“Is it not like a courtier,” said she, “to treat a peasant-girl as if she were a princess? You would not even ask me when I saw my last sunset, lest I should have to tell you that it was as I stood barefooted on the beach, the tangled seaweed dripping over me.”
“How can you like to pain me by talking of these things?”
“But we must talk of them, Gardy. You know we think of them; and this letter—this letter,” said she, tapping it with her finger impatiently, “must be answered one day.”
“And there is but one answer to give, Kate,” said he, sharply. “I will not consent. He who now assumes the uncle——”
“Heismy uncle, Sir,” said she, haughtily. “It is scarcely generous to deny me whatever good blood I can lay claim to.”
“My child, my dear child, if you but knew how I love whatever loves you, you would not have uttered this reproach.”
“My mother’s sister’s husband is surely my uncle,” said she, coldly, and not heeding his protestation. “I never heard that a mésalliance could cancel the ties of kindred.”
“None ever said so, Kate.”
“You said as much, Sir; you said, ‘assumes the uncle!’”
“I meant in a different sense, my dear child. I meant, that he wanted to impose an authority which mere relationship would not give him.”
“Read his letter again, Sir—pray read it.”
“No, my child; it has given me too much pain already.”
“I think you are not just to him, Gardy,” said she caressingly. “May I read it to you? Well, a part of it?”
“Once more, no, Kate. His argument is, that as he is now childless, he has the right to claim your love and affection, to replace what he has lost; that, as your nearest of kin, you cannot refuse him; and that, if you do—mark the insinuation—the reasons will be, perhaps, based on considerations apart from all affection.”
“I think he had the right to say that,” said she, firmly.
“There was one thing, however, he had no right to say,” said the old man, haughtily; “that to continue to reside under my roof was to challenge the opinion of a world never slow to be censorious.”
“And there, again, I think he was not wrong.”
“Then you love me no longer, Kate!” said he, with intense emotion.
“Not love you—not love you! Then, what do I love? Is it nothing to know that every happiness I have I owe to you—that all the enjoyment of a life more bright than a fairy tale, comes from you? That from your generous indulgence I have learned to think mere existence something like ecstasy, and awake each day as to a fête?”
“Say on, dearest, say on; your words thrill through me like a gentle music.”
“He does not offer me these; but he says, ‘Come to what you shall call your home, and never blush to say so.’”
“It is too insolent!”
“He says, ‘As my daughter by adoption, you shall bear my name.’ I am to be a Luttrell—Kate Luttrell of Arran!”
“And for this poor name you would barter all my love, all my affection, all my hope?”
“It is a great and noble name, Sir! There were Lords of Arran called Luttrell in the thirteenth century!”
“You have told me of them,” said he, peevishly.
“Too proud and too haughty to accept titles, Sir.”
“I have a name that the first in the land would not scorn,” said he, in a voice of blended pride and anger; “and my fortune is certainly the equal of a barren rock in the Atlantic.”
“You are not my uncle, Sir,” said she, softly.
“No, Kate; but——” He stopped, the colour fled from his cheek, and he seemed unable to continue. “Has any tender love for you equalled mine?”
“Stop there!” said she, fiercely; “my favour is not put up to auction, and to fall to the highest bidder. When you have said that my uncle is poor, you have said all that can be laid to his charge.” She closed her eyes, and, seeming to speak to herself, murmured: “The poorer, the more need has he of affection.”
“I see it all—all!” said he, bitterly. “You wish to leave me.”
She made no answer, but sat staring vacantly over the sea.
“Better to say so, my child—better to own that this life has ceased to give you pleasure. But if you told me, Kate, that you would like to travel, to see other countries, to mix with the world, and partake of the enjoyments——”
“How—as what?” said she, impatiently. “It was but a few months ago you received some strangers at your house, and have you forgotten how they treated me? And do you believe, Sir, that the world will have more reserve than the guests under your roof? Who is she? is not answered so easily as one may think. It would take blood to wash out the stain of ‘What is she?’”
The old man walked rapidly up and down; he wiped the drops that stood on his brow, and muttered uneasily to himself: “and why not? To whom have I to render an account? Who shall dare to question me? Am I to be turned from my path by a sneer and a sarcasm? Is the ribald gossiping of a club to be of more weight with me than my whole happiness?”
She watched the conflict, and saw every struggle that shook him; she could even mark the vacillating fortunes of the fight—when he conquered, and when he fell back, discomfited and beaten.
“Tell me, Kate,” said he, at last, as he approached her, “is there any condition you can propose by which I may secure myself against desertion?”
“There would be no desertion, Gardy. You could come and see me in my new home. I would do my utmost to hide its poverty. Who knows if my ingenious devices might not amuse you. My uncle, too, might permit me—no, perhaps not that——” said she, stopping, in some confusion.
“What is it he wouldn’t permit, Kate?”
“I don’t know; I was talking to myself, I believe, and I feel weary and feverish too. Gardy, let us not speak more of this now; it oppresses me. And see! there goes down the sun, and I have not enjoyed all its gorgeous colour over the waters.”
“I wish you would tell me what Mr. Luttrell might not permit.”
“He’d not permit me to stay out on the sea-shore till the evening dew had fallen,” said she, laughing. “Tell them to take me back.”
“Yes, darling, we have lingered here too long. It was my fault.”
And now the little procession moved slowly across the sands towards the town; passing through small mean-looking streets, they gained the place where their hotel stood. Groups of idlers were about—townsfolk and a few strangers—who made way for them to pass. Some respectfully enough—the show of rank suffices at times to exact this—others, more venturesome, stared at the beautiful girl, and then looked at the worn and feeble figure who walked beside her. That they were English was plain enough, and was taken as a reason to comment on them without reserve.
Sir Within turned looks of anger and defiance around him; he gave them to understand that he could overhear their insolence, and he sought with his eyes through the crowd to see one—even one—sufficiently like a gentleman, to hold him responsible for the impertinence.
“Neither wife nor daughter, I’ll wager a ‘cent-sous’ piece,” said one, as they passed under the arched doorway.
Sir Within stepped back, when Kate said, suddenly, “I mean to walk up-stairs, give me your arm, Sir;” and as they moved slowly on, she whispered, “How can it be helped, Gardy?” and then, with a laugh, added, “it is a maxim of your own, that it is the unmannerly people take care of the public morals.”
It was a subtle flattery to quote himself, which Sir Within thoroughly appreciated, and as he took leave of her at the door of her room he was almost calm again.
When Kate had gained her room she locked the door, and throwing off her shawl and bonnet, sat down before the glass; her hair fell heavily down in the rude carelessness with which she flung her bonnet from her, and now, with a faint tinge of colour in her cheek—the flush of a passing excitement—she looked very beautiful.
“So,” said she, smiling at her image, “it is the old story, ‘Qu’en dira le Monde?’ The dear old man was very, very fond. He admired me very much; I pleased him—I amused him—I made his life somewhat brighter than he would have found it rambling amongst his Titians and Peruginos; but, with all that, he couldn’t face the terrible question, What will the world say? Ma foi, Mademoiselle Kate, the confession is not flattering to you! Most people would call me very inexpert that I had not made that grand old place my own before this. I had the field all to myself—no rivalry, no interference—and certainly it was a great opportunity. Perhaps I was too much occupied in enjoying my happiness; perhaps I took no note of time; and, perhaps, if I ever thought at all, I thought I could win the game whenever I liked, and now I awake to discover that there is something that he fears more than he loves me; and that the dear old dowager world, that shakes down reputations with a nod and blasts pretensions with a stare, will declare a strict blockade against the distinguished Sir Within Wardle and that girl—lucky if they do not say, ‘that creature’—he married. Ought he not to have had a spirit above this? Ought he not to have been able to say, ‘I am rich enough to buy this bauble, and if the wearing it gives me pleasure, I can forget your sarcasms? I like the life she can throw around me; which of you all could give such colour to my existence?’ He might have said this, but he did not. He heard me talk of a new home, and a new name, and he would not offer me his own. He saw and felt bitterly, too, how my position compromised me. I took care he should see it, but no thought of separation crossed him, or, if it did, stronger than all was the dread query, ‘Qu’en dira le Monde?’
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“There are things one cannot believe possible till they have happened; and, even then, some strange uncertainty pervades the mind that they have not been read aright. This is one of them. No one could have persuaded me this morning that this prize was not mine whenever I cared to claim it. What a fall to my pride! How little must I feel myself, that after all these years of subtle flattery, I might as well have been with the Vyners—living with creatures of my own nature—giving affection and getting it—cultivating the heart in the rich soil of human hopes and fears, and loves, and trials, and not wearing a mask till it had stiffened into my very features. And he refused me—yes, refused me; for there was no maiden bashfulness in the terms of my offer. I said, I go back to be the niece, or I stay to be the wife; and his reply was, ‘Qu’en dira le Monde?’ I suppose he was right—I am sure he was; but I hate him for it—how I hate him!” She arose and walked the room with long and measured steps for a while in silence, and then burst out: “What would I not give to be revenged for this? Some vengeances there are he would feel bitterly. Should he meet me in the world—the great world, for instance—the wife of some one, his equal, see me courted, and feted, and flattered; hear of me at all times and all places, and learn that this ‘Monde’—that is his god—had adopted me amongst his spoiled children, I think I know the dark despair that would gather around him as he muttered to himself, ‘And she might have been mine—she had been mine for the asking—she offered herself;’ ay, he might say so, if he wished to add insult to my memory; ‘and I only replied, “The world would not bear it!” How I hate him! How I hate him! If I cannot be revenged as I wish, I will be revenged as I can. I shall leave him—go at once. He has passed his last of those blissful days, as he loves to call them; and he shall, awake to see his life in all the weariness of desertion. Not a look, nor a sound; not a laugh, not a song to cheer him. With every spot full of memories of me, he shall be haunted by a happiness that will never return to him. I know that in his misery he will ask me to forgive the past and be his wife; and if the alternative were to be the wretchedness I sprung from, I’d go back to it!
“I do not know—in all likelihood I shall never know—what this heart of mine could feel of love, but I know its power of hatred, and so shall Sir Within, though it may cost me dear to buy it.
“Your repentance may come as early as you please, it shall avail you nothing. It may be even now; I almost thought I heard his foot on the stair; and I know not whether I would not rather it came now, or after months of heart-suffering and sorrow. I was slighted—he weighed the beauty that he admired, and the love he thought he had gained, against the mockeries of some score of people whose very faces he has forgotten, and ‘Qu’en dira le Monde’ had more power over him than all my tenderness, all my wit, and all my beauty.
“Is it not strange that, with all his boasted keenness to read people’s natures, he should know so little of mine? To think that I could stand there and see the struggle between his pride of station and what he would call ‘his passion’—that I could tamely wait and see how I was weighed in the balance and found wanting—that I could bear all this unmoved, and then return to my daily life, without an attempt to resent it?
“It is true, till this letter came from my uncle, there was no pressure upon him. None in the wide world was more friendless than myself. His life might have gone on as heretofore, and if a thought of me or of my fate invaded, he might have dismissed it with the excuse that he could mention me in his will; he could have bequeathed me enough to make me a desirable match for the land-steward or the gardener!
“How I bless my Uncle Luttrell for his remembrance of me! It is like a reprieve arriving when the victim was on the scaffold. He shall see with what gladness I accept his offer. If the conditions had been ten times as hard, I would not quarrel with one of them. Now, then, to answer him, and that done, Sir Within, you run no danger of that scandal-loving world you dread so much! For if you came with the offer of all your fortune to my feet, I’d spurn you!”
She opened her writing-desk, and sat down before it. She then took out Luttrell’s letter, and read it carefully over. I must take care that my answer be as calm and as unimpassioned as his own note. He makes no protestation of affection—neither shall I. He says nothing of any pleasure that he anticipates from my companionship—I will be as guarded as himself.” She paused for a moment or two, and then wrote:
“My dear Uncle,—Though your letter found me weak and low, after a severe illness, its purport has given me strength to answer you at once. I accept.
“It would be agreeable to me if I could close this letter with these words, and not impose any further thought of myself upon you; but it is better, perhaps, if I tell you now and for ever that you may discharge your mind of all fears as to what you call the sacrifices I shall have to make. I hope to show you that all the indulgences in which I have lived make no part of my real nature. You have one boon to confer on me worth all that wealth and splendour could offer—your name. By making me a Luttrell, you fill the full measure of my ambition.
“For whatever share of your confidence and affection you may vouchsafe me, I will try to be worthy; but I will not importune for either, but patiently endeavour to deserve them. My life has not hitherto taught many lessons of utility. I hope duty will be a better teacher than self-indulgence. Lastly, have no fears that my presence under your roof will draw closer around you the ties and the claims of those humble people with whom I am connected. I know as little of them as you do. They certainly fill no place in my affection; nor have I the pretence to think I have any share in theirs. One old man alone have I any recollection of—my mother’s father—and if I may judge by the past, he will continue to be more influenced by what tends to my advantage, than what might minister to the indulgence of his own pride. He neither came to see me at Sir Gervais Vyner’s, nor Dalradern; and though I have written to him once or twice, he never sought to impose himself as a burden upon me. Of course, it will be for you to say if this correspondence should be discontinued.
“You will see in these pledges, that I give in all frankness, how much it will be my ambition to be worthy of the noble name you allow me to bear.
“There is no necessity to remit me any money. I have ample means to pay for my journey; and as there are circumstances which I can tell you of more easily than I can write, requiring that I should leave this at once, I will do so immediately after posting the present letter. I will go direct to the hotel you speak of at Holyhead, and remain there till your messenger arrives to meet me.
“You distress me, my dear uncle, when you suggest that I should mention any articles that I might require to be added to your household for my comfort or convenience. Do not forget, I beg, that I was not born to these luxuries, and that they only attach to me as the accidents of a station which I relinquish with delight, when I know that it gives me the right to sign myself,
“Your loving Niece,
“Kate Luttrell.”
The day was just breaking as Kate, carrying a small bundle in her hand, issued noiselessly from the deep porch of the hotel, and hastened to the pier.
The steam-boat was about to start, and she was the last to reach the deck, as the vessel moved off. It was a raw and gusty morning, and the passengers had all sought shelter below, so that she was free to seek a spot to herself unmolested and unobserved.
As she turned her farewell look at the sands, where she had walked on the evening before, she could not believe that one night—one short night—had merely filled the interval. Why, it seemed as if half a lifetime had been crowded into the space. Within those few hours how much had happened! A grand dream of ambition scattered to the winds—a dream that for many a day had filled her whole thoughts, working its way into every crevice of her mind, and so colouring all her fancies that she had not even a caprice untinged by it! To be the mistress of that old feudal castle—to own its vast halls and its tall towers—to gaze on the deep-bosomed woods that stretched for miles away, and feel that they were her own! To know that at last she had gained a station and a position that none dared dispute; “For,” as she would say, “the world may say its worst of that old man’s folly; they may ridicule and deride him. Of me they can but say that I played boldly, and won the great stake I played for.” And now, the game was over, and she had lost! “What a reverse was this! Yesterday, surrounded with wealth, cared for, watched, courted, my slightest wish consulted, how fair the prospect looked! And now, alone, and more friendless than the meanest around me! And was the fault mine? How hard to tell. Was it that I gave him too much of my confidence, or too little? Was my mistake to let him dwell too much on the ways and opinions of that great world that he loved so well? Should I not have tried rather to disparage than exalt it? And should I not have sought to inspire him with a desire for a quiet, tranquil existence—such a life as he might have dreamed to lead in those deep old woods around his home? To the last,” cried she, to herself—“to the last, I never could believe that he would consent to lose me! Perhaps he never thought it would come to this. Perhaps he fancied that I could not face that wretchedness from which I came. Perhaps he might have thought that I myself was not one to relinquish so good a game, and rise from the table at the first reverse. But what a reverse! To be so near the winning-post, and yet lose the race! And how will he bear it? Will he sink under the blow, or will that old pride of blood of which he boasts so much come to his aid and carry him through it? How I wish—oh, what would I not give to see him, as he tears open my last letter, and sees all his presents returned to him! Ah, if he could but feel with what a pang I parted with them! If he but knew the tears the leave-taking cost me! If he but saw me as I took off that necklace I was never to wear again, feeling like one who was laying down her beauty to go forth into the world without a charm, he might, perchance, hope to win me back again. And would that be possible? My heart says no. My heart tells me, that before I can think of a fortune to achieve, there is an insult to avenge. He slighted me—yes, he slighted me! There was a price too high for all my love, and he let me see it. There was his fault—he let me see it! It was my dream for many a year to show the humble folk from whom I came what my ambition and my capacity could make me; and I thought of myself as the proud mistress of Dalradern without a pang for all the misery the victory would cost me. Now the victory has escaped me, and I go back, so far as my own efforts are concerned, defeated! What next—ay, what next?”
As the day wore on, every incident of her ordinary life rose before her. Nine o’clock. It was the hour the carriage came to take her to her bath. She bethought her of all the obsequious attention of her maid, that quiet watchfulness of cunning service, the mindful observance that supplies a want and yet obtrudes no thought of it. The very bustle of her arrival at the bathing-place had its own flattery. The eager attention, the zealous anxiety of the servants, that showed how, in her presence, all others were for the time forgotten. She knew well—is beauty ever deficient in the knowledge?—that many came each morning only to catch a glimpse of her. Her practised eye had taught her, even as she passed, to note what amount of tribute each rendered to her loveliness; and she could mark the wondering veneration here, the almost rapturous gaze of this one, and not unfrequently the jealous depreciation of that other.
Eleven o’clock. She was at breakfast with Sir Within, and he was asking her for all the little events of the morning. And what were these? A bantering narrative of her own triumphs—how well she had looked—how tastefully she was dressed—how spitefully the women had criticised the lovely hat she swam in, and which she gave to some poor girl as she came out of the water—a trifle that had cost some “louis” a few days before.
It was noon—the hour the mail arrived from Brussels—and Sir Within would come to present her with the rich bouquet of rare flowers, despatched each morning from the capital. It was a piece of homage he delighted to pay, and she was wont to accept it with a sort of queen-like condescension. “What a strange life of dreamy indulgence—of enjoyments multiplied too fast to taste—of luxuries so lavished as almost to be a burden—and how unreal it was all!” so thought she, as they drew near the tall chalk cliffs of the English coast, and the deck grew crowded with those who were eagerly impatient to quit their prison-house.
For the first time for a long while did she find herself unnoticed and unattended to; none of that watchful, obsequious attention that used to track her steps was there. Now, people hurried hither and thither, collecting their scattered effects, and preparing to land. Not one to care for her, who only yesterday was waited on like royalty!
“Is this your trunk, Miss?” asked a porter.
“No; this is mine,” said she, pointing to a bundle.
“Shall I carry it for you, my dear?” said a vulgar-looking and over-dressed young fellow, who had put his glass in his eye to stare at her.
She muttered but one word, but that it was enough seemed clear, as his companion said, “I declare I think you deserved it!”
“It has begun already,” said she to herself, as she walked slowly along towards the town. “The bitter conflict with the world, of which I have only heard hitherto, I now must face. By this time he knows it; he knows that he is desolate, and that he shall never see me more. All the misery is not, therefore, mine; nor is mine the greater. I have youth, and can hope; he cannot hope; he can but grieve on to the last. Well, let him go to that world he loves so dearly, and ask it to console him. It will say by its thousand tongues, ‘You have done well, Sir Within. Why should you have allied yourself with a low-born peasant-girl? How could her beauty have reconciled you to her want of refinement, her ignorance, her coarse breeding?’ Ah, what an answer could his heart give, if he but dared to utter it; for he could tell them I was their equal in all their vaunted captivations! Will he have the courage to do this? Or, will he seek comfort in the falsehood that belies me?”
In thoughts like these, ever revolving around herself and her altered fortunes, she journeyed on, and by the third day arrived at Holyhead. The rendezvous was given at a small inn outside the town called “The Kid,” and directions for her reception had been already forwarded there. Two days elapsed before her uncle’s messenger arrived—two days that seemed to extend to as many years! How did her ever-active mind go over in that space all her past life, from the cruel sorrows of her early days, to the pampered existence she had led at Dalradern? She fancied what she might have been, if she had never left her lowly station, but grown up amongst the hardships and privations of her humble condition. She canvassed in her mind the way in which she might have either conformed to that life, or struggled against it. “I cannot believe,” said she, with a saucy laugh, as she stood and looked at herself in the glass, “that these arms were meant to carry sea-wrack, or that these feet were fashioned to clamber shoeless up the rocks! And yet, if destiny had fixed me there, how should I have escaped? I cannot tell, any more than I can tell what is yet before me! And what a fascination there is in this uncertainty! What a wondrous influence has the unknown! How eventful does the slightest action become, when it may lead to that which can determine a life’s fortune! Even now, how much is in my power! I might go back, throw myself at that old man’s feet, and tell him that it was in vain I tried it—I could not leave him. I might kneel there till he raised me, and when he did so, I should be his wife, a titled lady, and mistress of that grand old castle! Could I do this? No: no more than I could go and beg the Vyners to have pity on me and take me back; that my heart clung to the happiness I had learned to feel amongst them; and that I would rather serve them as a menial than live away from them. Better to die than this. And, what will this life at Arran be? This uncle, too, I dread him; and yet, I long to see him. I want to hear him call me by his own name, and acknowledge me as a Luttrell. Oh, if he had but done this before—before I had travelled this weary road of deception and falsehood! Who knows? Who knows?”
“Are you the young lady, Miss, that’s expecting an elderly gentleman?” said the housemaid, entering hastily.
“Where from? How did he come?” cried Elate, eagerly; for her first thought was, it might be Sir Within.
“He came by the Irish packet, Miss.”
“Yes that is quite right. If he asks for Miss Luttrell, you may say I am ready to see him.”
In a minute or two after she had given this order, the girl again opened the door, saying:
“Mr. Coles, Miss;” and introduced a florid, fussy-looking little man, with a manner compounded of courtesy and command.
“You may leave the room, young woman,” said he to the maid; and then, approaching Kate, added, “I have the honour to speak to Miss Luttrell?”
She bowed a quiet assent, and he went on:
“I’m chief managing-clerk of Cane and Co., Miss Luttrell, from whom I received instructions to wait on you here, and accompany you to Westport, where Mr. John Luttrell will have a boat ready for you.”
He delivered this speech with a something half-peremptory, as though he either suspected some amount of resistance to his authority, or imagined that his credentials might be questioned.
“Have you no letter for me, Sir?” asked she, calmly.
“There was a letter from Mr. Luttrell to Mr. George Cane, Miss Luttrell, explaining why he was not himself able to come over and meet you.”
“Was he ill, Sir?”
“No, not exactly ill, Miss Luttrell, though he is never what one can call well.”
“I am astonished he did not write to me,” said she, in a low, thoughtful tone.
“He is not much given to writing, Miss Luttrell, at any time, and of late we have rarely heard from him beyond a line or two. Indeed, with respect to my present journey, all he says is, ‘Send some one in your confidence over to Holyhead by the first packet to inquire for Miss Luttrell, or Miss O’Hara—she may be known by either name—and conduct her to Elridge’s Hotel, Westport. The young lady is to be treated with all consideration.’ These are his words, Miss, and I hope to follow them.”
“It is very kind,” said she slowly, and half to herself.
“It’s a Frenchified sort of phrase, ‘all consideration,’ but I take its meaning to be, with every deference to your wishes—how you would like to travel, and where to stop. Mr. George, however, told me to add, ‘If Miss Luttrell desires to make any purchases, or requires anything in town, she is to have full liberty to obtain it.’ He did not mention to what amount, but of course he intended the exercise of a certain discretion.”
“I want nothing, Sir.”
“That is what Mrs. Coles remarked to me: If the young lady only saw the place she was going to, she’d not think of shopping.”
Kate made no answer.
“Not but, as Mrs. Coles observed, some good substantial winter clothing—that capital stuff they make now for Lower Canada—would be an excellent thing to take. You are aware, Miss, it is a perpetual winter there?”
A short nod, that might mean anything, was all her reply.
“And above all, Miss Luttrell,” continued he, unabashed by her cold manner—“above all, a few books! Mr. L., from what I hear, has none that would suit a young lady’s reading. His studies, it seems, are of an antiquarian order; some say—of course peoplewillsay so—he dips a little into magic and the black art.” Perhaps, after all, it was the study most appropriate to the place.
“I suppose it is a lonesome spot?” said she, with a faint sigh, and not well heeding what she said.
“Desolate is the name for it—desolate and deserted! I only know it by the map; but, I declare to you, I’d not pass a week on it to own the fee simple.”
“And yet I am going there of my own free will, Sir,” said she, with a strangely meaning smile.
“That’s exactly what puzzles Mrs. C. and myself,” said he, bluntly; “and, indeed, my wife went so far as to say, ‘Has the dear young creature nobody to tell her what the place is like? Has she no friend to warn her against the life she is going to?’”
“Tell her from me, Sir, that I know it all. I saw it when I was a child, and my memory is a tenacious one. And tell her, too, that bleak and dreary as it is, I look forward to it with a longing desire, as an escape from a world of which, even the very little I have seen, has not enamoured me. And now, Sir, enough of me and my fortunes, let us talk of the road. Whenever you are sufficiently rested to begin your journey, you will find me ready.”
“You’ll stop probably a day in Dublin?”
“Not an hour, Sir, if I can get on. Can we leave this to-night?”
“Yes; I have ordered the carriages to take us to the pier at nine, and a cart for your luggage.”
“My luggage is there, Sir,” said she, pointing to the bundle, and smiling at the astonishment his face betrayed; “and when you tell your wife that, Sir, she will, perhaps, see I am better fitted for Arran than she suspected.”
Albeit the daily life of Mr. Coles gave little scope to the faculty, he was by nature of an inquiring disposition, not to add that he well knew to what a rigid cross-examination he would be subjected on his return to his wife, not merely as to the look, manner, and mien of the young lady, but as to what account she gave of herself, where she came from, and, more important still, why she came.
It was his fancy, too, to imagine that he was especially adroit in extracting confidences; a belief, be it observed, very generally held by people whose palpable and pushing curiosity invariably revolts a stranger, and disposes him to extreme reserve.
As they walked the deck of the steamer together, then, with a calm sea and a stilly night, he deemed the moment favourable to open his investigations.
“Ah, yes!” said he, as though addressing some interlocutor within his own bosom—“ah, yes! she will indeed feel it a terrible contrast. None of the pleasures, none of the habits of her former life; none of the joys of the family, and none of the endearments of a home!”
“Of whom were you speaking, Sir?” asked she, with a faint smile.
“Dear me I dear me I what a man I am! That’s a habit my wife has been trying to break me of these fifteen years, Miss Luttrell; as she says: ‘Coles, take care that you never commit a murder, or you’re sure to tell it to the first person you meet.’ And so is it when anything occurs to engage my deepest interest—my strongest sympathy; it’s no use; do what I will, out it will come in spite of me.”
“And I, Sir,” said she, with a slow and measured utterance, “am exactly the reverse. I no more think of speaking my thoughts aloud, than I should dream of imparting my family secrets, if I had any, to the first stranger whose impertinent curiosity might dispose him to penetrate them.”
“Indeed!” cried he, reddening with shame.
“Quite true, I assure you, Sir; and now I will wish you a goodnight, for it grows chilly here.”