Tremenhere had two distinct characters; with those he disliked, he had more than the coldness ascribed to Englishmen in general; there was something almost despotic in his manner. With those to whom his affections kindled, he was not alone gentleness itself, but forbearing, bending, loving, the almost habitual frown quitted his face, and left it youthful, bland, and joyous in expression. Poor Miles! he had suffered, and been made to endure, keenly; he had been forced to graft suspicion on a noble nature, and this destroyed the bud of much good fruit. There was so much wild nature about him, that not unfrequently the usages of society suffered from his bluntness; what he thought, he spoke freely.
"Miss Dalzell knows, I presume," he said, as the three entered the path-field, "my history—as I was—as I am?"
"But slightly," she answered, rather embarrassed.
"Well, 'tis best, perhaps, little known to one so young and pure as yourself. It would show you a capability of vice in the human heart, which you may never discover in your personal career—so better ignore it; it might, too, tarnish your mind's purity, to see so dark a current in a life's ocean; but what I wished to allude to, is this, when I first saw you, and heard your name mentioned, it recalled you to me as one whom I have recently heard of as the elected bride of my hopeful cousin, Marmaduke Burton. My first thought of you was darker than dislike—'twas contempt; no good, true heart could love that man for himself."
"Stop, Mr. Tremenhere," cried Skaife hastily, and in evidently painful emotion. "Do not judge harshly what woman's weakness or love may lead her to forget, or forgive, for herself or another."
"Good heavens, Mr. Skaife!" cried Minnie, amazed and in almost horror; "what do you suppose?"
Skaife had forgotten her, he was thinking of another. Tremenhere stopped suddenly, and flushed deeply, as he fixed his earnest eyes on her—
"Have I, can I have been mistaken? Has my own wary judgment in general, deceived me this once? I thought," he almost uttered these last words to himself, "no one could cheat my watchfulness now."
"Mr. Tremenhere," exclaimed she in much embarrassment, yet anxious to cast from her a garment so hateful as the one which should cloak her as Burton's wife in his or any eyes, "I may be speaking boldly for a girl, and to you, a stranger too, but I would not have any one suppose, much less you, an injured man, that I can ever become your cousin's wife. Mr. Skaife, pray assure Mr. Tremenhere you did not allude to me!"
"Indeed," said Skaife, much puzzled by his own awkwardness, "I had forgotten all present; I will explain my meaning to you," and he turned to Miles.
"Oh!" answered this man again, reassured in confidence, and smiling his own peculiar smile on Minnie. "I ill deserve this kindness, this haste to soothe my wounds. Believe me, they are deep and cankering when I think of Burton, not for myself, but another. You have been so Christian in kindness to poor Mary, that I could not bear, Miss Dalzell, to associate any one I respected in even my thoughts with that traitor. Thought," he continued, musingly, "is a gift of the soul; you will inhabit mine, linked with that unfortunate girl, whom I much love."
"Am I to understand," asked Skaife aside to him in surprise, "that you know all?"
"All?" and the other stared, astonished at the question to himself. "Could any know it better? what else has again brought me to this place? what drove me from it?"
"Then, indeed, you are to be pitied, Mr. Tremenhere—deeply pitied; but I feared something of this, from your emotion in the humble cottage we have quitted."
Skaife was playing with shadows of his own creating. He fancied Tremenhere loved Mary, with whom he had been brought up from childhood; and he also thought he (Tremenhere) knew all her painful story. Skaife's last words demanded an explanation. Before the other could ask it, Minnie uttered an exclamation, and over the stile, the last one, near which they stood, struggled Mrs. Gillett—for struggle it was—whether she should overcome the stile, or the stile lay her in the ditch. However, she arrived safely on the side where stood the three, smoothed her dress, settled her apron, picked up a patten which she had dropped (she always carried these, even in the finest weather, to cross the brooks on,) and then she looked up over her spectacles, which were on the tip of her nose, and stood transfixed. At a glance she knew Miles Tremenhere. Mrs. Gillett had one excellent quality—she was no talebearer; she kept circumstances to herself; they only oozed out in imperceptible drops in her counsellings, making her seem an Œdipus for soothsaying and guessing. Her hearers were amazed when truths came to light which she had foretold, without any seeming foreknowledge of them: herein lay her strength and power over all. "Mussiful powers!" she mentally said; "here's a pretty business! What am I to do withhim?" She was thinking of all the lovers for Minnie she had already on hand, with their leaders. Skaife was the first to recover self-possession. "Perhaps, Miss Dalzell," he said, "you will allow me"—he did not say "us," for Mrs. Gillett was, perhaps, ignorant who Tremenhere was; he might seem as a stranger to Minnie in her eyes—"to hand over my escort, however unwillingly done, to Mrs. Gillett; and I and my friend (he glanced at Miles) will continue our walk of business."
But Tremenhere stepped boldly forward; something more than his usual candour forbade disguise, even if practicable: "Mrs. Gillett," he said, "you and I are old friends. Surely you remember the 'sweet youth,' as you were used to call me when I visited Gatestone and your cosey room there!"
Mrs. Gillett shrunk back—she was on her slippery rock: had they been alone, she would gladly have spoken to Miles, before witnesses she durst not. She looked down, and, affecting not to hear, stooped, resting on one toe to support her knee, on which, placing a patten, she very assiduously begun tying its string. Miles laughed aloud: it was a cold, contemptuous, unpained laugh. "Miss Dalzell," he said, lowly bowing, and changing his tone to one of feeling, "I do indeed thank you for to-day, for all your gentle words. Whenever I revisit this spot, here shall I pause to salute the shade of one whose kindness will be ever present with me." He was turning sadly away: "Good bye, Mr. Tremenhere," she cried, extending her hand; "and when we meet again, may you be very differently circumstanced to what you are to-day."
He grasped her hand, and all the speeches ever formed could not have been half so eloquent, as his tremulous "I thank you deeply and sincerely, may your kind wish be heard;" and with a sigh, which we often grant to sympathy, though refusing it to our own hardened feelings, he turned away with Skaife, who shook Minnie kindly by the hand; it was a parting of three very kindred spirits. As they walked off, Mrs. Gillett rose from her occupation. "Your dear aunts sent me to meet you, darling," she said, glancing round cautiously, "and I always like to bring my pattens with me; I don't like damp grass, it don't agree with my rheumatics." At that moment Tremenhere paused in his walk, and turned round, as if irresolute whether to return, and perhaps say something left unsaid. Mrs. Gillett saw it, and, once more stooping, she gave a violent tug to her patten string; she had raised herself three inches upon those kind of young stilts, which even yet old-fashioned country folks wear. "Bless the tie!" she cried, bent nearly double, her back curved like a boy at leap-frog; "bless the tie, it always comes undone, or gets into a knot—I never see such strings!" Minnie saw nothing of this; she could not have comprehended Mrs. Gillett's policy; then, too, her thoughts were more knotted than even the patten tie;—who might unweave and straighten them? Alas! a few moments will often entangle the skein of our existence, knotting up hopes, fears, and cares, in one unravelable mass. Tremenhere turned, and walked on; Minnie had seen the action, and it troubled her, "What had he wished to say? would he tell Skaife? could she serve him in any way? poor fellow—poor Miles Tremenhere!" Every one knows the reputed relationship between friendship and love; they have a family likeness, and are not unfrequently mistaken for one another, till the latter pirouettes, and then we find the arrowless quiver, (theyremain with us,) and the extended wings,—who may clip them?
"Your aunts were very anxious about you," continued Minnie's companion, peering over her spectacles to read if the other had readher; "poor, dear ladies, I'm sure it's a great blessing for you to have such relations in your orphan state; and then your kind uncle, too, he is more sensible, and judges better what's good for you than any, as in course he should—in course he should," here she paused, and peeped at the thoughtful girl. "The lawyer Mr. Dalby's very well," ran on Mrs. Gillett, "and so is Mr. Skaife—oh, he's a pious young man! and his sermons are quite edifying; but then, I've always remarked, your very pious young men don't makeverygood husbands, or happy homes. A man should only think of his wife, and how can the clargy do that when they're the fathers of the whole parish? and I'm sure Mr. Skaife has enough to do hereabouts, for they are an ill broughtened-up set as ever I met with, and, as his housekeeper says, when he isn't writin' his sermons, he'sastonishingsome one," (query, admonishing?) "Now, as to marrying him, with all his occupation, it might do very well for Miss Sylvia, or Miss Dorcas, but for a fine young lady like you, why, you should have horses, and carriages, and servants at command, and be the grandest lady in the neighbourhood. Then, as for Mr. Dalby, why, what with lattycats,rejectments, and briefs, it's but little timehe'dfind to pay you proper attention."
"Mrs. Gillett!" exclaimed Minnie, so suddenly that she almost frightened her off her pattens, "don't you know Mr. Tremenhere? didn't you know him as a boy?"
"Bless me, Miss Minnie, whatareyou talking of! don't speak of that dreadful young man, Miss; it's unbecoming a modest young lady to know there's such a person living."
"Mrs. Gillett!" and the girl stood still in amazement.
"To be sure," responded the woman, "he must be a bad character—wasn't his mother? and how could he be good?—Don't a cat always have kittens?"
"Mrs. Gillett," cried Minnie, again grasping her arm, and her eyes looked deepest violet with emotion. "You would be a very wicked woman to think what you say; that was Miles Tremenhere with Mr. Skaife. I pitied him before knowing him, and now, if I could by any means see him righted, I'd lend my hand to the good work, and I do hope some day he may be at the manor-house again!"
"That Mr. Tremenhere!" exclaimed the politic Gillett. "How boysdoalter, to be sure!" She evaded replying to the other things said; it would not do, too decidedly, to take any side of the question; the womb of Time is very prolific—we never know what offspring it may produce. They were in the shrubberies of Gatestone by this time; a few moments' silence ensued, interrupted only by the click-clack of Mrs. Gillett's pattens.
"Mrs. Gillett, why will you wear those horrid things on the gravel walks? you cut them up terribly," said a voice behind them. Minnie turned, her companion stopped, and stooped to disencumber her feet of their appendages, by which movement Juvenal nearly fell over her. She was pitched forward on her hands and knees by the concussion, with a scream; another picked her up—'twas the squire. Juvenal was evidently cross, or he would not have spoken so disrespectfully to his matron housekeeper.
"I hope I see Miss Dalzell well?" said Burton, offering his hand.
"Well, thank you," answered she, not appearing to notice it—he bit his lip, and dropped beside her.
"I really should like to know where you go every day—where you have been this morning, Minnie?" asked her uncle crossly.
"Shall I tell you, uncle?" she answered, and then, without giving herself a moment to consider possible consequences to herself or others, with the too hasty candour of a generous mind anxious to espouse the weaker side, she continued, addressing herself this time to Marmaduke Burton,—"I've been to Mary Burns's cottage, and there I met Mr. Skaife, and your cousin, Mr. Burton, Mr. Tremenhere." Certainly she created an effect; the squire tottered and became ghastly pale, Juvenal looked amazed and annoyed. "What—together?" he cried. "How came that about? Where is Mr. Tremenhere? and how dare you become acquainted with that man?"
"Your surprise equals mine," said Burton, recovering himself partially, then added ironically—"Our young curate might do better composing his sermons, than becoming bear-leader to an impostor, and a man of Mr. Tremenhere's character. Ascousin, Miss Dalzell, allow me to disavow him; he is none such by law, and I have no desire to outstep any bounds to claim that enviable distinction."
"I only judge the law of humanity," she replied, in a slightly tremulous tone; she began to be afraid of the storm of such passions as his face bespoke working in his frame. "And no man should be condemned for the faults—if faults there were—of his parents."
"If faults there were," said Burton, echoing her words. "Allow me, Miss Dalzell, to reject, in all politeness, the right your speech offers me, of standing in Mr. Tremenhere's position. He or I am an impostor, a claimant to an unjust title of proprietorship; besides, there are more personal faults appertaining to that gentleman, at variance with my ideas of honour."
For an instant a doubt crossed her mind about Mary and Miles; could Burton allude to this? But her heart repudiated the thought.
"Did he become suddenly so wicked?" she calmly asked. "As boys together—as men, indeed—up to the period of his father's death, had he the deep hypocrisy to conceal all this?"
"Miss Dalzell seems well informed of my history," he said, through his half-closed teeth. "I cannot but feel flattered by the kind interest it evinces in me." He bowed low.
"Really, Minnie," said her uncle, "you have chosen a strange subject; pray, drop it. How could you have become acquainted with that man? This comes of your running about alone—it must be seen to, and quickly: Mrs. Gillett!" The woman stepped forward at his call; and now she blessed her forethought and policy in having ignored Tremenhere's identity!
"Mrs. Gillett," said her master, while the other two walked on in silence, "what do you know about this? You were with Miss Dalzell: where did you find her, and how?" The woman was quite calm under this criminal examination—she felt so sure of her innocence.
"I know nothing of it, master," she said decidedly: "I met Miss Dalzell, dear child, in the holly field; just as I stepped over the stile, my patten came undone; I was busy settling it; I saw Mr. Skaife and another gentleman, but I'm sure I couldn't swear to him; I never looked in his face—it isn't my custom so to do to them above me, 'specially gentlemen!" and she smoothed her virginal-looking apron, tied over her modest heart with wide tape strings.
Sylvia and Dorcas came out to meet the approaching group. "Where was the child?" demanded the former at the top of her voice. Juvenal looked, and was, much excited. "Mrs. Gillett found her," he replied, "with an improper—a most improper—character!"
"What a dreadful thing!" screamed Sylvia; "who was it?"
Dorcas was by the girl's side, calmly speaking, and inquiring the cause of her protracted stay, which had alarmed them. She knew, however, that Minnie was not in any wilful harm, yet her affection made her fearful of ill. We will leave them to their explanations, to which Mr. Burton was not a witness, having taken his leave hastily of all. Poor Minnie had a sad trial, and a severe lesson and lecture, the consequences of her warm heart and candour—two things, bad guides in this world of brambles; with these her garments would be, haplessly, frequently rent and disfigured.
We will ask our readers to step into the holly field with us, to where we left Skaife and Miles Tremenhere, both of them walking back in deep thought.
From some ambiguous words dropped by Miles in the cottage, and during Minnie's stay with them, it will be remembered that Skaife was impressed with the idea that Tremenhere had, as a boy probably, loved Mary Burns, who had been aprotegéeof his mother's at the manor-house; and the curate also thought that the other was aware of her sad fate. For some time the silence was unbroken, then Miles, suddenly turning towards his companion, said, like one awakening from a dream, "Pardon me, Mr. Skaife, but I am an uncouth man, much alone, little in humanized society; my chief companions are stocks and stones, and the native inhabitants of wild nature; forgive me again, I had forgotten to thank you, which I do most sincerely, for your kindness to poor Mary Burns, and also to myself personally; few, indeed, would have had the courage to notice, and be thus publicly seen with one at so low a discount as I am in this neighbourhood."
"Believe me sincere, when I assure you, Mr. Tremenhere," rejoined the other, "that from all I have heard, and now seen, no one can more truly deplore your misfortunes than I do."
"Do you know them all?"
"I think, I believe I do," hesitated the curate; he feared uttering something painful.
"Do you know that for upwards of twenty-one years I was brought up at the manor-house, beloved by a father and mother, the best Heaven ever formed—oh! especially the latter; I can scarcely speak of her now." He paused, and seemed choking with emotion. "To be brief," he continued, after a pause, "in one year I lost all; she died first, my father soon followed her, and then, while my sorrow was still green, my cousin, Marmaduke Burton, put in a claim for the property, on the ground of my illegitimacy! I was stricken, I had not a word to offer, proof I had none to the contrary; my father's marriage had taken place, formarriage there was, at Gibraltar; my mother was Spanish, of not exalted parentage, I believe,—from thence sprung the great difficulty of proof. Only an obscure family to deal with, that ruffian Marmaduke gained all—the property was tied up until the event should be known; I had few wealthy friends—he, both friends and money. Most of my earlier days had passed in studies abroad; I came only at stated periods to my home—I was a stranger among my own countrymen;—he had secured himself allies (I will not call them friends, of these he could have none); he was assisted too, by a greater scamp than himself, a mean, cold-blooded villain of the name of Dalby. In my bewilderment, my horror, athername—my pure, holy mother's name—being dragged forward for public scorn, I lost all nerve and power; then too, I was poor,—the result you know. Mr. Skaife, I am a wanderer—he, in my halls; but all is not lost yet. I may find my way to sunlight, even like the blind mole."
"And, Mr. Burton," asked the other, hesitatingly, "was he not a frequent visiter at the manor-house?"
"Why man, the reptile was there as my friend and brother; whenever I returned from my rambles, or school, in earlier days, 'twas 'Marmaduke' and 'Miles' with us from boyhood's youngest hours; he was with mesoothing, when she, my mother, died—and there, too, when I put on my orphan state of master and lord of the manor-house. A week afterwards the long prepared claim was put in; the morning he left for that worthy purpose, he shook me by the hand, and said as usual, 'Good bye old fellow, we shall meet soon;' and we did—in court."
"And it was at the manor he knew Mary Burns?" asked Skaife, deeply affected.
"Ay, at the old place she had been as companion, almost child to my mother, from her childhood. Then when her old mother became paralyzed, and lost her school, Mary went to reside with her in that cottage; but it was comfortable then. My mother, and a little of her own industry in fancy work, kept them. Alas, poor Mary! I loved her dearly, as ever man loved a sister, she was so exemplary a girl under many trials."
"I fancied," said Skaife, "I scarcely know why, but I fancied there had been a warmer attachment." To his own surprise, he found himself conversing with this almost stranger as with an old friend, so certain is it, that kindred souls know no time, to limit their flight to meet their fellow spirits. Tremenhere coloured even through the bronze of his dark complexion; at the last words he was silent some moments, and then said hastily, but not haughtily: "Mary was a playfellow, as a sister to me—I never loved her," and he seemed desirous of changing the subject. This proud man appreciated the other's qualities and his goodness; with him he was no longer the cold, guarded person which circumstances had made him generally in his intercourse with all.
"It is a painful subject with you, I see," said Skaife, much embarrassed how to proceed; "but my mind is greatly relieved on one point—I feared you had loved this poor girl; that not having been the case, my duty is easier, for one it is, to consult with you what had best be done for her."
"Yes, poor girl! I had for a moment lost sight of her case in other thoughts—selfish ones, too—we are such mere automatons to our ruling passions. Poor girl! I hear that hopeful cousin of mine has ordered them to quit the cottage; so I presume they must—but where go? that's the question. I am so hampered myself by other cares, I scarcely know how to help them; could he not be prevailed upon to allow them to remain another six months—what do you think?"
Skaife's blood chilled within him; he felt like a disappointed man. Here was the person who had known Mary from childhood, almost a brother, so coolly wishing her to remain on the sufferance of Marmaduke Burton, as he knew him, and believed the other too, equally enlightened on several points.
"No," he coldly said, "I do not think she can, or ought to remain under circumstances; think of the dreadful crime she has almost committed, Mr. Tremenhere,—suicide!"
"True, but she has promised not to attempt that again. In our toiling passage to the attainment of any object, we must drink many a bitter draught. She must try and submit for a while, I fear, to a few annoyances: poor Mary—what can I do?"
"Pardon me, Mr. Tremenhere," answered Skaife in a cold but decided tone; "withmyconsent, as curate of this parish, she shall not remain. She might not commit suicide; but men are strange creatures, and the woman they cast from them to-day, they might kneel to, to-morrow, were she to appear indifferent; this girl shall never know the temptation such an act on his part might be."
Tremenhere stopped as if transfixed by a bolt of iron, and stared in speechless wonder in his companion's face. Skaife continued speaking, mistaking the dark cloud of demoniacal expression crossing that handsome face, for indignation towards himself for his free speech; for this he little cared.
"Mr. Burton's ardent, but heartless, pursuit of the girl till her ruin ensued, proves a deeper motive, I fear, than passion; the same revenge towards you, may urge——" He said no more.
"Stop!" cried Miles, in a voice of thunder, and he grasped the other's arm, and arrested his footsteps. His whole power of utterance above a whisper seemed to have been expended in that one word; for his voice became a mere breath like a dying man's, as he asked, while that strong, robust frame tottered beneath his heart's weight in his agony, "Do I understand you aright, that Mary Burns has been seduced, and by Marmaduke Burton?"
"Alas, yes! I thought you understood so from your words in that cottage." Poor Skaife was pale with emotion; the other had not changed, his blood stood still, only the muscles had given way beneath the blow. There was a long silence; Miles still grasped his arm till it fell from that clasp at last, powerless to hold it—they were near the stile leading into the lane where Mary's cottage was situated.
"Does Miss Dalzell know this?" inquired Miles, as if one thought, rushing with the many through his brain, found an outlet.
"The ruin, but not the man," answered Skaife.
"God bless her, then!" burst from the suffering man's lips, and with that blessing the blood flowed once more through his frame. It was as a gush of molten lead, forcing its way outwards, burning as it rushed; his face became dark and lurid, and his flashing eyes looked wildly forward.
"I have not words to thank you with, for all you have done," he cried in a hoarse, unnatural voice, grasping Skaife's hand. "We shall soon, very soon, meet again;" and with one bound he cleared the stile, and almost like thought stood before the terrified Mary Burns, who had sunk in a chair when they departed, almost fainting, from fear of the result of their conversation; and now she felt how well grounded that terror had been when Miles strode into the cottage. She knew his ungovernable passion when excited by injury or villainy in another—in her terror she rose before him: "Miles!" she almost screamed.
"Not Miles!" he cried, "but the spirit of his mother returned to condemn you; an angel who breathed on you from her own pure lip, who strove to instil her purity into your polluted soul—Devil's child!" and he grasped her trembling arm—he was pitiless, scarcely human, in his rage then—as he continued, "to hear such counsels, to breathe the atmosphere of such a presence, and turn to your hell again! Could not even her dying blessing, which fell united on both of us, cleanse you? Could you find no fitter object for your impure love than him, the man who has branded her memory with so foul a stain, who has driven her son, almost your brother, forth, a beggar, and nameless! If there's one drop of human blood in you, woman, shed it in tears for your baseness! Oh, heavens!" and he looked fixedly forward like a man in a trance, "give me power to call down on this creature the reward of her foul work!"
"Do not curse me, Miles," she shrieked, dropping on her knees and clasping them, "have mercy on me—have mercy on me!"
It was a fearful picture on which the curate at that moment looked unseen through the open door;they, in their agony, and the poor old mother totally unconscious of all, some happy thoughts evidently crossing her mind, for she was smiling, and endeavouring to rub her paralyzed hands together at the joyous dream. Skaife involuntarily drew back, and leaned against the door-post to keep away other witnesses, should the voices within attract notice in the adjoining cottages. Miles's hand was passed painfully over his face and brow—he had flung his hat aside.
"Have pity, Miles!" she cried, her eyes streaming with tears which nearly choked her, as she clasped her hands, and kneeling, looked up to where he stood, for he had shaken her off as she clung to him. "But if you knew what dreadful struggles of nearly maddening power ground my heart down to bitterness, andrevenge," (she almost whispered the last word,) "before I committed this fearful sin against myself,you, and, far more than all, the memory of your sainted mother, you might find some excuse. You cannot forget how my presumptuous heart, forgetting all but her more than woman's kindness, dared to lose sight, from her gentleness, of the distance between us, and loved you. You cannot forget the day I dreamed you returned it, and boldly confessed mine; you were calm, dignified, manly, and generous, when you said you never could return it—that I had mistaken you, and you hoped myself, and when you drew me to your heart with abrother'slove—Oh, may you never know such humiliation asIfelt then, which turned to a blacker feeling afterwards, fostered by him; for when you, for my sake, absented yourself from home for months, you cannot know how this weak heart was worked upon byhim. He had seen all, guessed all; and, unsuspecting his motives, I one day confessed the truth to him. From that hour he became the friend, the comforter; he alone spoke hope to me—a hope his every action discredited faith in. Then your mother died; events were drawing to a close; you returned, no thought of love in your heart; I repressed my mad affection for you, but I was weighed to earth by the effort. I was but a girl of eighteen in a villain's hands, when the downfall of all came; your father's death, your banishment——"
"And did not all these sad events, Mary," and his voice was low and trembling as he looked down upon the cowering woman, "soften your heart to pity, not revenge? Our affections are not our own; we are not masters of these but by many a hard struggle. I never could have loved you more than as a sister: it was not pride, Mary; we have none of that with those we love. I loved you very truly for your own sake, for the sake of our happy days of childhood together, and for my mother's sake." As the last words fell from him, the man, for a moment spirit-broken and agonized, sunk down on a chair, and, leaning his head on his arm across the table, wept like any woman over the ruin before him, and his memory of another. He had not one selfish thought; he was iron for himself,—for others, as a child at heart in love and gentleness. She rose, and, creeping to his side, took the hand which, clenched in its agony, rested on his knee, and, dropping on hers, she covered it with tears and kisses. "Forgive me, Miles," she sobbed, "for you know not all I endured of trial before I fell. He told me you had scoffed at my love—to him. It was not the work of a day or hour; it is nearly eight long years since you quitted this place; for more than four we have not met; for less than that space I have been the guilty creature I now am!"
Insensibly his hand unclenched and clasped her's; she continued sobbing between each scarcely-articulate word, "When, by every artifice man could employ, he led me to error; and, ever since, this most bitter repentance. 'Twas done under the promise of making me his wife, to showyouthatheappreciated my worth. And when he said you not only had repulsed my love, but scorned it——"
"He lied, Mary, he lied!" articulated the sorrowing man, looking up; "frommehe never heard of our love; he must have divined it."
"God help me!" she uttered, kissing his clasping hand, "for I have suffered much; and it was my refusal (for years now) to continue in my error, which has made him persecute me so of late. I told him last time we met, thatI loved you still, and ever should." These last words were scarcely breathed.
"Heaven help you, my poor girl!" cried Miles, looking at her as he placed a hand gently on her head; "for what can that love bring you?—Sorrow and disheartenment in every effort for existence; a log to hamper every step of your pathway to independence! Rise up, Mary," and he drew her on his heart; "come what may, my girl, these arms will shelter you still from the cold, heartless world. I am richer now, Mary, and to-morrow you and that poor old woman shall leave this place; and once away, oh, then!—--" He spoke the last words with a stern resolution.
"What, Miles?" and she clasped his clenched hand in her's, and gazed terrified in his flashing eyes.
"I'll return to my home abroad," he uttered, dropping them to concealtheirspeech, lest she should read aright.
"I'm sure," said Sylvia Formby, rocking herself backwards and forwards in her chair, about an hour after Minnie's return, "I don't know whatcanbe done with this girl; she certainly is a dreadful cause of anxiety to all, and especially to poor me!" She was one of those who delighted in being miserable. One would really have imagined, from her manner and conversation about her, that Minnie was one of the very worst girls in existence—an unruly, impossible-to-govern creature. Aunt Sylvia was in her own room; and opposite to her, shaking her head in sorrowing sympathy, perched on the edge of a chair, sat Mrs. Gillett.
"Young ladies is a dreadful responsibility," ejaculated the latter guardedly, (it was safe speaking in general terms;) "all ar'n't as you was, Miss Sylvia!"
"I'm sure I don't know whatisto be done with my niece," continued the other, unnoticing the compliment. "I feel some harm will happen to her, if she be not married out of the way. What with your master's obstinacy, and Miss Dorcas's dulness of comprehension, the girl will assuredly be lost unless I exert myself."
"In coorse, Miss," ventured the listener.
"She never will marry the squire; that she positively asserts, and her manner proves it. Then, Mr. Skaife—what is he? Only a poor curate, who has just bread enough for himself, and nothing to spare; and she don't like him. Now, Mr. Dalby has the whole patronage of the neighbourhood, except Mr. Burton's, and he's a very charming man: what more can she desire?"
"And he'll have Squire Burton's business again, Miss; that's for sartain, for they were seen walking together yesterday."
"I don't exactly know how he lost it," said Sylvia. "Do you?"
"All alongofMiss Minnie," was the response. "Mr. Dalby, when the old squire died, Mr. Tremenhere, conducted the business for Mr. Burton; indeed he had known the facts long before, they say—that is, the servants say; howsomdever, since they both have been coming a-coortin' Miss, they haven't been such friends. But I'll tell you what I think, Miss Sylvia," here the sybil lowered her voice to a whisper—"and mind I'm seldom wrong, and I wouldn't say this to any one but yourself—I believe, if Miss isn't looked after, just for contrariness sake, if he stays hereabouts, she'll get a-coortin' with that young Mr. Tremenhere!"
"An illegitimate child!" shrieked the virtuous Sylvia, in horror.
"Yes, Miss Sylvia, with him; and, as you say, it's dreadful, for he hasn't a name in the world to call his own, except Miles, and what sort of acognation, as master calls it, is that for her to marry? He hasn't his father's nor his mother's; he's a outlaw, and any one that pleased might shoot him like a dog, I hear."
Sylvia had only heard a portion of this sentence, the prophecy about Miles and Minnie. She had extraordinary faith in the worldly perceptiveness of Mrs. Gillett. She anxiously inquired the foundation for the other's suspicion; but the good generalship of the matron forbade any undue confidence respecting her reasons, merely contenting herself with alarming her listener to the fullest extent of her powers, by persisting in her belief, as arisingprincipally, she laid a stress on this word, thereby implying that she held back more cogent articles for her belief, from the fact of Miss Minnie's own statement, that she had been walking with this Miles Tremenhere, for to no one would this very politic woman confess, that she had recognised him herself at a glance. Mrs. Gillett was a very cautious person indeed, one of those whose opinions would never choke them from a too hasty formation of them, nor her words leave a bitterness in her mouth from an inconsiderate utterance of them. She was a perfect reflector, throwing her light upon others, and not suffering thereby herself. Minnie had a sorry day of it; first, Sylvia had lectured her, then Juvenal, and lastly, Dorcas commenced questioning, but this latter did it, as she ever acted with her beloved niece, in kindness. As for the others, they would fain have bent her to their separate wills; but Minnie had learned to judge for herself coolly and dispassionately, else where would she have been, occurring as it did, that all three had fixed upon a different object for her husband? To Dorcas she was all affection, rendering full justice to that aunt's interest in her, and correct judgment; but it so happens that in affairs of the heart, our very dearest and best friends are too frequently incapable of judging what would be most conducive to our real happiness, though, in a mere worldly point of view, they may be right. A little counsel, a little guidance, and much sincere interest in our welfare, are the best methods after all;certainly notcoercion, that makes us infallibly look with premature dislike on the one for whom we are persecuted.
"I do wonder, dear aunt," said Minnie to the one she loved so well, "why you are so anxious to make me marry, never having done so yourself—how is it?"
The truth never crossed Minnie's mind. Dorcas looked down, and a pale blush of something resembling shame crossed her cheek; then she looked up with candour and affection. "My dear child," she said, "Sylvia would not perhaps like my telling the exact truth, which is this, that in fact no one ever asked either of us!"
"Is it possible!" exclaimed her niece, amazed beyond measure. How could she, worried as she was by an excess of suitors, guess the extraordinary position of a woman who never had one? and aunt Dorcas had been assuredly pretty, and still was very comely. "My dear aunt," she cried again, after a silence of thought on both sides. "It must have been your own fault. Oh! pray, endeavour to induce Sylvia to seek a husband for herself, and leave me alone; or do make her busy herself for uncle, and then you and I shall be at peace. I shouldn't likeyouto marry. I'm very selfish, dear aunt; but I should be so much afraid of losing your love," and she fondly kissed her cheek.
"I never shall now, dear Minnie; but when you marry, you will love another better than me—I shall only be your aunt, and so it should be."
"Do you know," answered her niece, fixing her sweet eyes upon her, "I often think I never shall marry; I have heard so much about it, that the subject has become quite distasteful to me."
"Oh! you will change your mind, Minnie, when the one you can, andshouldlove, comes."
"What do you mean, aunt, by should love?"
"There are those in the world we ought to guard our affections against; their loss might bring misery."
"Whom are they? would—would, now, supposing an impossible case—would Mr. Tremenhere, if he loved me, be such a one?"
"Why do you think of him, child?" and her aunt looked scrutinizingly in her face.
"Oh, because," answered the blushing Minnie, "he is the first stranger I have met likely to enter into my ideas of such a case: all the constant visitors here have the consent of some one of my relatives,—the mere acquaintances I meet when we go any where, have nothing against them,—I daresay, if I liked one of them, every one of you would, though perhaps reluctantly, say 'yes;' but Mr. Tremenhere—he is different, poor fellow! How I pity him! I do indeed, aunt, and he is so agreeable."
The aunt, unworldly wise as she was, had fallen into a reverie; before she aroused herself to reply, the sound of carriage-wheels without drew her attention to the window. Minnie was the first there,—"Whom have we here? two ladies!" Her aunt was beside her.
"Why Minnie, these are your aunts, Lady Ripley and Dora!" exclaimed she.
"That Dora!" cried her niece, as a tall handsome girl stepped from the carriage; "how altered she is,—I wonder if she will know me?" and though something like a chill had fallen on her heart at sight of her cousin, she sprang across the room to meet her. It was not Dora's beauty which had pained Minnie—she did not know what jealousy was then, certainly, of mere personal charms—but it was the chilling influence of pride which spoke in every movement of her cousin; even in the act of stepping from her carriage, she looked like a priestess of that spirit, following in her footsteps. As she entered the hall, Minnie—simple and beautiful Minnie—stood half abashed before her. Dora's fine eyes were wandering over the group, as she coldly returned the embraces of her aunt Sylvia and Juvenal; at last they rested on Minnie, who had just appeared,—the cold smile warmed, and the cousins were in each other's arms.
"Dear Minnie!" said Dora, "I have longed so much to see you," and she embraced her tenderly.
"I was afraid you would have forgotten me," answered the delighted girl.
"Oh! I never forget those whom I have loved; I often have wished you with me in Italy;" and her fine face, lit up with warmth and sincerity, became perfectly beautiful. The girls sat down side by side, and hand in hand, conversing, after Dora had duly embraced all. Lady Ripley was different to the other members of her family. She appeared more like a composition of all, with a cloak of pride over the whole, in which she completely wrapped herself up; only now and then, when the cloak opened, some of her realities slipped out. She had less of Dorcas than of either of the others,—silly as Juvenal, worldly like Sylvia, and a little bit of Dorcas's good-nature composed the whole. She had married, most unexpectedly, one far above herself in rank and station. Not having had time to familiarize herself with the position before entering upon it, she plunged in, and became for awhile overwhelmed. The country gentleman's daughter forgot the real dignity of the ladylike person, who may pass without comment any where in the rank of countess, so suddenly forced upon her; then, too, the Earl was one of the coldest, proudest men in the world, and lived long enough to engraft a sufficient quantity of theviceof pride (when attached to mere station) upon his only child's really noble nature, for a dozen scions of nobility. Lady Dora's keen perception, as she grew up, readily detected the real from the assumed; and having much loved, respected, and looked up to her father, his vice became a virtue in her eyes,—a natural one; whereas her mother's assumption of it, made her, without becoming undutiful, still look upon her as a merely bad copy; consequently, her aunts and uncle became sharers of her species of contempt. Indeed, she had carried that impression away with her when she quitted them and England, three years before, for Italy; and the knowledge of the world acquired since then, had rather strengthened the feeling. Since that period she had lost her father, and this keenly-felt loss hardened the girl's softer emotions. She seemed incapable of any thing like warmth of affection; for, the first ebullition of joy over on seeing Minnie, whom she really liked better than any person almost in the world, she sat like a beautiful statue, just warmed enough to life to speak and listen;—the face had become colourless again, the smile cold and proud, and the haughty eyes and haughtier brow, seemed to glance or bend with equal indifference on all around her. She was perfect in her beauty as Minnie—one, was the damask rose for richness, the other, the chaste lily; for when Dora's colour rose, nothing could surpass that ripe sunset glow,—it was magnificent from its eastern brightness and depth; whereas Minnie's never became more than a beautiful blush, flitting and returning like a swallow over a wave. Dora's hair was the very darkest chestnut, yet this it was, a colour seldom seen, nothing resembling black nor brown, but the exact colour of the nut itself, rich and mellow. Her eyes—there was her charm of face, they were so dark and lustrous—velvet eyes, with the sun shining on them; extravagant, too, for they expended their glances right and left on all, not from a desire to slay her thousands, but, like the donation of the rich and proud to the beggar, she flung her gold away, not caring who might gather it up; it was flung from an inexhaustible source of wealth—it was the natural love of expenditure, inherent in the generous mind giving of its profusion. No one had ever seen her move quickly, scarcely even as a child; when she rose from her seat, she seemed to rise by some quiet galvanism, majestically, gracefully, but without energy or effort; so it was with all; grace presided over all—cold natural grace. Where her mother used violent force to seem dignified, and often thus destroyed the lady, Dora without a thought, so to seem, was an empress in majesty. Minnie was slight and girlish, her cousin matured in form, though not too much so for her height and bearing, with a waist the hand might almost have circled; one curl on either side of her oval face fell quite to that slender waist in unrestrained perfection, heavy and glossy, veiling, but not concealing the beautiful, but strongly marked eyebrow.
The cousins escaped as soon as possible to Minnie's room; there is a natural restraint ever felt by the least checked before their elders—girls have a language apart of their own. Alas! for the wintry day, when the falling snow of worldly care chills the ideality of thought, and brings to the lip only the sterner realities of life. The two sat and talked of old days, even to them. Dora spoke of Italy, of her father's death soon after she and Minnie parted, and the proud eyes forgot their pride when nature bade them weep—how Minnie loved her then! there was so much softness inhernature. She folded her gentle arms round Dora, and soothed her so lovingly, that the eyes looked up upon her in gratitude and affection. Then, to divert her attention, Minnie told her all her troubles—squire, parson, and lawyer; but she did not breathe the name of Miles Tremenhere. He had so completely won upon her sympathy, that she dreaded to hear Dora speak of him, either in contempt, or else mere worldly policy; so they sat and talked, until Lady Ripley summoned her daughter, by the voice of a French maid, "to dress for dinner."
"I am sure," whispered Aunt Sylvia to Mrs. Gillett on the stairs, when she was retiring to bed that night, "I and Lady Ripley shall not agree long, if she prolongs her stay; for 'tis quite absurd, Gillett, the idea of her dressing in such a style for our quiet dinner, only ourselves, and her annoyance because my niece, Lady Dora, refused to do the same! It is putting notions of dress into Miss Minnie's head, which will make her look down on every one here. I shall tell her so to-morrow; I always like to give my candid opinion, though she mightn't like it!"
"So I would, Miss," answered her agreeing listener. "For no one can be a better judge of every thing than yourself; for I'm sure, as I say to every body, 'just look at our Miss Sylvia, why, she's like a busy bee! she's a pattern—that she is!'"
Mrs. Gillett walked down the corridor, and, coming from her daughter's room, she met Lady Ripley.
"Ah, Gillett!" said that lady, patronisingly; "I'm glad to see you looking so well."
Gillett curtsied to the ground. "I'm sure, my lady," she replied, "it's only the reflections of your ladyship's presence which make me look so; for, as I've just been saying below, it is a pleasure to see a lady look as you do, younger by years than you were, years ago, and know too, what's due to herself, and dress every day as if she was going to court! Ah! it's a pity the dear ladies, Miss Sylvia and Miss Dorcas, is so plain in their ways; it's quite spoiling sweet Miss Minnie, who cares no more for dress or state than if she had been born, if I may be so bold as to say it of your ladyship's niece, in a poor cottage of a mother always knitting woolly stockings!"
"I must see what's to be done, Gillett," answered her ladyship in a queenly tone; "I will have some serious conversation with my brother about her to-morrow."
"If your ladyship will please not to say I said any thing," whispered the politic housekeeper.
"I never quote other's opinions, my good woman," was the haughty reply, as she sailed into her room, with a majestic "Good-night to you."
"To think," soliloquized Gillett, as she toiled up a second flight of stairs, "she should be so amazing proud now, when I remember her setting herself off to the best advantage to attract the notice of our passan then, the late recumbent!" There in an hour in every one's life, when he or she is candid and natural; generally it falls between locking the bedroom door at night, and snuffing out the candle—'tis an hour of thoughtful soliloquy!
People are early in the country—"early to bed, early to rise." It was just ten by Minnie's hall clock as Mrs. Gillett became confidential to herself, and at that hour another person, some distance from Gatestone, was struggling with the voices of nature and truth united, which rung the word "shame" in his ears—this was the squire. He sat alone. All the servants had retired; his own man even dismissed. He sat in a small study adjoining his bedroom—not that he studied much, but the room had so been planned and arranged, and so he left it. A few additions of his own had been made, such as a brace of favourite pistols, a gun or two, spurs, whips, fishing-rods, and their accompaniments; the books on their neglected shelves were as silent memory. They spoke to no one; no one sought or conversed with them; their thoughts were sealed within their own breasts—like glowing eyes gazing on the sightless, no looks lit up to meet their glances. Beautiful, cheering things, among which we might live alone for ever, nor feel our loneliness.Manwould perhaps sink off into drowsy rest; but thesoulcreeping forth, cheered by the stillness, could seek its companions in those leaves clinging together with the damp of years, and live with them in long ages gone by, when they were permitted to speak above the mere practical spirits of the present day. Poetry was there in sorrowing maidenhood, as she glanced upwards at an old mandolin with chords, suspended against the wall, the loving once, now dumb suitor, who has sung her praises, and wooed her to smile! It was strange that old mandolin should be still there: it was the one on which Miles's mother had often played and sung to him in infancy and boyhood! It was strange, then, that Marmaduke Burton should sit, as he sat on that evening, facing it. While he turned over piles of gloomy-looking papers and parchments, his brow was scowling, more so than usual; his face, that cold, livid colour, which the warm heart never avows as its index. At his feet lay an uncouth-looking bulldog; he seldom was seen without this companion. Somehow, if the dog were absent, Marmaduke became uneasy; cowards seldom rely upon themselves alone. Every paper, as it passed through his hands, was carefully examined, and then as carefully folded up and placed within a large drawer by his side, evidently one of some old cabinet. "Nothing," he whispered to himself. "Dalby said there was nothing—no proof; for, after all, I would not have it on my conscience to say, Iknewthere was proof, and withheld it. 'Tis not for me tosearchfor writings or witnessesagainstmyself," this was added after a thoughtful pause. After awhile he continued, "Besides, it is scarcely probable that old Tremenhere ever married that poor Spanish girl; those girls at Gibraltar are not of very noted virtue. I should have been a fool indeed, to sit down quietly and allow another to enjoy mine by right, from a mere idea of honour. Had he succeeded, he would not have shared with me. Ididoffer him a competency," all this time he had been assorting the papers. "Nothing here," he continued. "What's this? oh! a letter from old Tremenhere, written after his mar—after his connection" (he corrected himself) "with that woman Helene Nunoz, he, evidently being here, and she still abroad, in Paris—eh? not Gibraltar. What says he?" For some moments he attentively read. "I have seen two or three of his letters," he said thoughtfully, "among old papers, and in all he speaks of one 'Estree.' Who can he be? here it is again." He read aloud a passage, accentuating every word, and dwelling on his own final comment thoughtfully for some moments. "'Do you see D'Estree often? Is he kind as ever to my Helena? his child, as he calls her. I should much likeoursto be christened by him; might he not be induced to return with us?' This must have been some clergyman or priest," was the thoughtful comment. At that moment his dog arose uneasily from the carpet at his feet, and walked towards the door. "What's the matter, Viper?" asked his master, starting timidly. "Look to it, dog—good dog;" but the dog returned quietly to its former place, and Marmaduke concluded the letter, which only spoke of love, and regret at absence. In the concluding lines again Viper moved to the door, and snuffed the air beneath the crevice. His master grew uneasy; he watched the dog, and, while doing so, tore up the letter he held, and flung it into a basket beneath the table. Viper moved about whining, not in anger, but more in satisfaction and impatience of restraint. The squire arose, and somewhat nervously approached the door. These letters had unnerved him; his hand was on the lock, the dog sprung up with pleasure; another hand turned the handle from the outside, it opened, and Mary Burns entered. As she did so, the dog fawned upon her.
"I might have guessed it!" ejaculated Marmaduke, falling back and scowling upon her. "Only you would Viper meet in such a manner; the dog's faithful to old acquaintance, I see." She stood quite still, silent, and very pale. "Down, poor animal, down!" she whispered at last to the dog, which was jumping up to caress her hand.
"I have yet to learn why you are here?" asked Marmaduke, sullenly, "and how?"
"I came to restore you this," she uttered, holding up a key in her hand; "this will explain how I am here."
"Oh, true! I had forgotten you came through the quiet gate leading by the shrubbery; I trust the reminiscence of the past, which such a walk must inevitably have awakened, procured you pleasure?"
"Sneer on, Marmaduke Burton! I came prepared to suffer all to-night. I came to restore you this, and also to implore a favour at your hands?"
"At mine! what can I do for you? I thought the hour of solicitation had passed between us—will you not be seated?" He offered her a chair; she appeared choking with emotion; and yet, though almost powerless to stand, waved her hand in token of dissent, as he pushed a seat towards her, and merely laid one hand upon the back of it for support.
"As you will," he said coldly, noticing the action; "and perhaps you will pardon my asking you as much as possible to abridge this visit; you see I am engaged." He pointed to the table of papers.
"I come," she said at last with great effort, "to implore one favour at your hands, as some mitigation of the deep remorse I feel. Miles Tremenhere is here—I do beseech you," here she clasped her hands, "not to make my burthen heavier to bear, by seeking to injure him farther."
"Woman!" he cried, standing erect before her, "do you remember to whom you are speaking? How have I injured him? Am I not heir—lawful heir—here? I wish to hear no more; go, you have chosen to place a barrier yourself between us—henceforth, 'tis as you have willed it. I offered you independence and oblivion of all, away from this, and you have refused, so you must take the consequences."
"I beseech you!" she exclaimed again, not heeding his words, "to have pity on that man, for the sake of his mother, who was one to me."
"That is perceptible," he said scornfully, "in the good fruit of her cultivation—vice seldom produces——"
"Hold!" she cried, springing towards him, and grasping his arm; "revile me as you will, but not her—she was pure as an angel, and you know it! And I adjure you by the wrong you have done her son—to spare him now; let him go in peace."
"Woman, I bid you go," he cried, shaking her touch from him, "before my patience becomes exhausted; what am I doing, or going to do to that man? Let him go as he will, I shall not molest him unless he cross my path; then woe betide him, whatever may be done, I'll do, nor ask whether he be relative or stranger."
"I only pray you," she continued, "should he seek you, as I fear he may, to be temperate, remembering what you were to each other, what you are in blood." She tried to soothe; had that not been the case, she would have fearlessly spoken all her thought of his treachery.
"Why do you think he will seek me?" he asked, and the eye, ever uncertain in its glance, shrunk from her's. He began to dread a possible meeting.
"Because, because!" she hesitated a moment; then, by an effort over her emotion, added more resolutely, "because he knowsall, and Miles is not one silently to pass over wrong to one he once loved and respected."
"Oh, that's it—is it?" Rising, he advanced a step towards the trembling woman; but suddenly paused, and hastily turned round. "What was that?" he exclaimed, looking fixedly at a door behind him, at which Viper had sprung growling.
The study had two doors in it, one leading through the corridor—the one by which Mary had entered; the other leading to a dressing-room, adjoining Marmaduke's bedroom—it was at this one the dog lay growling. "Curse that dog!" he cried angrily, "he makes one fanciful and nervous. Did you hear any thing?"
"Nothing," she rejoined, trembling with a strange tremor.
Marmaduke turned paler too than even he generally was—it was a coward pallor. Reaching a book from the table, he flung it at Viper, who startled, but not cowed, sprung under the table, upsetting the basket as he did so, which contained the torn papers; and then, as his master turned away, he returned again to his post at the door, and commenced scratching and growling at it. Marmaduke uttered a deep oath, and, seizing the animal by the throat, hastily opened the door leading towards the corridor, and flung him out. As he turned his back, a sudden, uncontrollable impulse seized Mary to stoop, and, unseen by him, grasp and conceal a paper which had fallen from the basket as Viper upset it. She felt that any thing written by that man might be of value to Miles; moreover, she saw how he (Marmaduke) had been employed with old papers and parchments, which made the one she held possibly more valuable.
"Now," he said, closing the door, "let us have a few final words, and then leave me; and if we meet again at your seeking, it will be a day of sorrow to you. I wish to do you no injury, for I liked you once—do not mistake," he hastily added, seeing she was about to speak; "I neverlovedyou—no, that was man's right of speech when I said so; we are bound to employ the same weapons others use against ourselves."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean lying and deceit. You never lovedme—Inever had that feeling for you; you have this evening shown me why you became mine. He had loved you, and then forsook—revenge dictated the act which made you give me a claim to call you mine; dislike to every thing fostering affection for that impostor and base-born hound, made me resolve to win you, and well have I succeeded! False to his affection for you, which you have confessed, and thereby made me doubly glad in having ruined you! false to me, if he so please it, I doubt not. Take back that garden key, woman, how do you know but that this impostor may some day be master here, and you require it for your secret visits to the manor-house? Verily, you love the place! feline in your affections, 'tis the place, not person, you care for!" As he concluded, he drew the deep-drawn breath of a man suffocating with overwhelming thoughts, bursting like deadly missiles from a shell, scattering death around; for, as he discharged them forth, the woman, stricken with shame and sorrow, cowered down, and buried her face in her hands. Marmaduke's deep sigh, as he concluded, was echoed by one still deeper—it was a groan, and came from the doorway leading into the dressing-room; he had but time to turn half round, when a heavy hand was on his arm.
"Unsay those words, 'impostor' and 'base-born hound,'" said Miles Tremenhere ('twas he) beneath his breath; "or the world shall add the other to them, and atrueone, 'avenger;'—as I am a living man this night, unless you do, or you, or I shall not quit this room alive!"
The presence even of that trembling woman imparted a feeling of protection to Marmaduke's coward heart. By a sudden jerk he disengaged his arm, and with one stride reached the opposite door. To think and do had been the work of an instant, the coward's self-shield through another. With a trembling hand he opened the door, and called "Viper," and the dog sprang in. No word was needed; the brave brute knew all enemies to his master, and a second spring would have brought him to Miles's throat, had that man not, foreseeing treachery, been on his guard. With one blow of his small, but muscular fist, he felled the animal, and, before it could recover itself, his hand grasped its throat; the woman shrieked—a true woman's heart is tender to every living thing. "Spare it, Miles!" she cried. "Poor, faithful brute!"
But Miles had no thought otherwise; while Marmaduke stood in a species of panic, which rendered further effort for an instant vain, the other strode to the door near which he stood, and, flinging the dog forth, calmly turned the key, and placed it in his pocket. This act alarmed Marmaduke; there is something to the cowardly man fearful in the calm of a resolute one. He turned hastily to fly, his hand was on the lock of the door leading to the corridor, but another's reached his before he turned it, and, without one uttered word, he felt his nerveless grasp withdrawn. The key grated in the lock beneath Miles's fingers; he saw him, too, with perfect composure, look around, and then, a feat of child's play to him, tear down the bell-rope, to prevent the possibility of Marmaduke's summoning assistance; this done, Miles turned calmly round to where his cousin stood. Mary had dropped, powerless to stand, in a chair, and, with eyes distended by terror, watched every movement of the quiet desperation Miles portrayed.
"Now," he said, in untrembling resolution, as he fixed his eyes on his cousin, the stern brow knit over their intense gaze, "retraction full, and immediate!"
"Of what?" asked the other, endeavouring to seem calm and unconscious.
"Of 'impostor,' and 'base-born hound!'"
"Do you call it a noble act, to enter, as you have done this evening here, with the connivance of that traitress, and play eavesdropper?" cried Marmaduke, endeavouring to evade the demand ofretractionof his tongue's hasty aspersion.
"Tis false, that too!" answered Miles. "I followed this girl, 'tis true; I feared she might be again led to attempt suicide,—I saw her enter by the shrubbery gate,—strangely enough, I, too, had purposed visiting you this night by that entrance, to which I also have a key," (he held one up as he spoke,) "mine, since when we often entered thereby together, cousin Marmaduke. But I had intended my visit to have been made some hours later, deeming that possibly the hospitable lord of the manor-house might keep open house for his numerous friends, whose pleasures I would not have interrupted for worlds. My business is of a private nature; but, as she entered, I followed, and, knowing all the intricacies of the old place, why, I came by the private stair to the adjoining rooms; these rooms were mine!"
The man's voice slightly trembled as he uttered these words; for, in looking round, his eye rested on the old mandolin; it awakened a chord in his heart, not like its own—broken. Marmaduke perceived this emotion, and deemed it an advantage gained, not having seen whence arose that softened tone; but Mary had seen, and her eye following his, the tears gathered in a heavy cloud over her vision, as she looked up to the thing to which she had often danced, a light-hearted child; for her heart was now as powerless of joy as the mandolin of tone; error and death had worked their will in stilling both.
"I should like much to know why you are here? why you purposed coming?" inquired Marmaduke, gaining courage.
"Before I reply to that," answered Miles, himself once more, "I must have retraction. I tell you so; so let it be quickly done, for she heard it,—to her you shall unsay it, and then our interview must be alone."
"I will not leave you, Miles," uttered the girl, clasping his hand, which hung down, as she crept beside him; but he neither heard nor saw her.
"When I came to this neighbourhood again," said Miles, "it was not to seek you; it was for one reason only—to visit in peace some old haunts, old friends. I yet have a few left—on all, I foundyourhand. He who knew me from childhood, my father's respected tenant, you have striven to drive forth—and, look there," he pointed to Mary; "this is your work too, cowardly villain, to war with a woman, and urge her to destruction by goading her to madness with falsehood and calumny; but this must pass awhile. First you shall clear from your lip by retraction the words you have said of my sainted mother; your act has,for awhile—mind I say onlyfor awhile—cast a slur upon her fame; but the lion only slumbers, cousin Marmaduke—he will awake soon. But this night was the first time you ever, in my hearing, uttered the words to blast her; indeed, until to-night you have kept hidden from my vengeance. When you commenced your worthy suit against me, after the first day you left others to complete it, and fled, hidden like a reptile in sunlight,—you came forth at night to spread your venom around; but for all that, a day of retribution will come, only for to-night, I demand retraction."
Marmaduke felt chilled: there was something fearful in Miles's resolute calmness.
"If," he said, yet not daring to look up, "you will go and take that woman in peace (for I would not have it known, for many reasons, thatshehad been here,) I will say this, that I ought perhaps not to have spoken before her of family affairs."
"Man!" cried Miles, in a voice of thunder, "say all was a lie, an invention; it will not take your devil-bought position here from you, but retract every wordyou shall!"
"Hush!" whispered Marmaduke, as the other strode towards him, putting up his hands to ward off his coming; "hush! some one may hear us, and report this visit."
"Whom does he fear?" asked Miles, turning to Mary.
"He fears lest Miss Dalzell should be informed, probably," uttered the shrinking woman.
"Miss Dalzell!" cried Miles, awakening as from a dream; "she willneverbecome the wife of this man; it would be profaning a creature stainless as the created day, before man made it blush for his sin; or looks and words only rank as liars."
Marmaduke glared on him, but durst not speak; he was awed by his cousin's sternness.
"Speak!" commanded Miles again impatiently; "I have yet a task to perform before we part, so hasten this; she must not see the rest. Come, man!" he uttered contemptuously, as the other visibly trembled, "speak the words: I promise you, reckless asIam of life, I have no purpose of taking yours,if you speak." There was that about him which terrified the other; it was the first time they had met out of court since the suit.
"I spoke hastily, angrily," stammered Marmaduke at last, his eyes bent on the ground, one of his hands nervously turning a letter on the table, the other in his bosom; "but this woman goaded me to it."
"'Tis well," uttered Miles scornfully, "well done, to accuse another to shield our own fault. You know my mother to have been pure as ever woman was, only thelawwanted proof."
"I believe she was a good woman," ejaculated the other, fearing some snare before witnesses.
"Fellow," cried Miles, seeing his hesitation, "I am not here to catch you in your words: you have calumniated, you shall restore; you have lied, you shall unlie. Do you not know in your heart that, though proof be wanting, my mother was a wife?" He made a movement towards where his cousin stood.
"I believe it," fell from the lips of the awed coward; "but you know the law will have——"
"Enough!" exclaimed Miles, waving his hand contemptuously. "I have devoted my life, with all its energies, to prove her to have been such, not for the sake of the land and tenements around us, but to rebuild in splendour an angel's darkened fame. Now, Mary, you have heard his retraction, leave us awhile, I will rejoin you before you have quitted the grounds."
"Let me stay, I beseech you, Miles," she whispered, her frame trembling with fear as he approached to put her forth.
"There can be no secrets she may not hear," hazarded Marmaduke, in terror himself at the idea of being alone with Miles. All the fear he had experienced as a boy of the other, when as children they quarrelled, stood before him, for Miles was of strong build, and great stature; he seemed to tower above his cousin, though actually less in height. A strange expression passed over Miles's face, as he looked from the one to the other.
"Well," he said, and a grim smile stole across his lip, and then disappeared—a mere phantom—"perhaps it is just it should be so. The man who honourably offends us, we meet in honourable fight; the cur which, coward like, yelps at and tears our heels, what does it deserve? A cur's chastisement," he added, not waiting for a reply. Before Marmaduke had time to think, or the woman had time to rush between them, Miles seized him by the collar, and at the same moment, drawing a thickly knotted whip from his pocket, with all the force of his vigorous arm, he applied the lash over the other's shoulders. Mary shrieked in terror, and sunk fainting on her chair.
"Howl like a hound in your craven fear!" shouted Miles, as his cousin groaned and writhed beneath the lash, helpless in that strong hand. "Come Mary, girl, look up; this is for your wrong, a coward's act—a cur's punishment. There," he continued, flinging him almost lifeless from him at last, and panting himself with the effort. "You'll remember the first meeting with Miles Tremenhere;—one thing more," he took down his mother's mandolin from its place. "Poor, senseless thing," he said, "yet speaking words of love to me, you have been made to look on desecrating words, deeds, and thoughts, in this man's presence. You have lost your purity, like all of us, sincesheleft you!" In his bitterness he forgot the suffering woman, who was weeping bitterly beside him. "Desecrated no more, speechless henceforth, and mute to all of the ruin around you!" he put the thing, which seemed as a breathing creature to him, beneath his foot, and with one stamp of his heel it flew into pieces. Crash after crash succeeded, until only a mass lay without shape on the floor. Marmaduke was speechless with terror and pain.
"Come Mary, my girl, look up now!" said Miles, kindly taking her hand. "I have avenged you as well as I can; he will not forget us—come!"
And, almost carrying the terror-stricken girl, he passed out by the corridor, carefully locking the door on the other side, to avoid interruption, and so he quitted his own halls.